Lately, it seems that any consumer portable worth its salt just has to have a snazzy eye-catching design. Indeed, prise the U3S from its packaging and the first thing you’ll notice is the incredibly glossy piano-black lacquered lid. But unlike Samsung’s equally shiny Aura range of laptops, the Asus’ lid is fashioned from sturdier stuff — magnesium alloy rather than plastic. Gripping the lid and giving it a gentle twist reveals a fair amount of flex, but it still affords the display plenty of protection — we really had to grapple with it before we noticed any sign of show-through.
Brush such practicalities to one side though, and it’s clear that this is no austere business laptop. This is a luxury laptop with a price tag to match. Easing the lid open reveals an unusual sight for the interior of a laptop — a black leather wrist rest and a touchpad framed by a chrome surround. Even the edges of the base and display are flanked by chrome strips, which sparkle pleasingly.
Given the asking price, you’d certainly expect a quality roster of components, and the U3S doesn’t disappoint. Intel’s latest Centrino chipset is present and correct, and with it comes Draft-N networking and 1Gb of Turbo Memory. Draft-N is a welcome addition, but you’ll need a draft-N wireless router if you want to make use of it. Far more useful is the embedded HSDPA, which 3G network coverage permitting, provides near-broadband download speeds on the move.
Another welcome addition is the eSATA port on the Asus’ right flank, which means that you can connect to external eSATA hard drives. Given the three USB ports, you might wonder why you need an eSATA port, but the principal benefit is performance — an external eSATA hard drive can transfer data just as fast as an internal Sata drive. And when it comes to backing up the ample 160Gb hard disk, that speed will be more than welcome.
Specifications alone don’t make a good laptop though, and one of the U3S’ key weaknesses, if you’ll forgive the pun, is its keyboard. Given the importance of a quality keyboard on any portable, the spongy, indistinct feeling keys are a real disappointment and seem out of place on such a premium laptop. Asus has left about a centimetre of space between the keyboard and the edge of the base, and as a result it has been forced to shrink a few keys here and there.
We dislike half-height Enter keys at the best of times, but as they’re partnered with tiny Ctrl keys it’ll take a while before you fully acclimatise to the quirkier aspects of the U3S’ keyboard layout. The trackpad is far more worthy of praise — we loved the silky feel of the pad — but it’s still not free from criticism as the buttons are stiff and require a hefty prod before registering.
The one aspect of the U3S that’s beyond reproach is its display. Just like the Dell XPS M1330 (reviewed on page 20), the Asus’ 13.3 inches of glossy screen is lit with the latest LED backlighting technology. But while the Dell’s display suffers from a slightly grainy quality, there are no such complaints with the U3S — instead the Asus rewards with a stupendously bright, clean image that’s free from any obvious defects. It’s simply one of the finest laptop displays we’ve ever laid eyes upon.
The Asus U3S is a perfect example of a laptop, which on paper looks fantastic but in the flesh, singularly fails to excite. The external optical drive is an aggravatingly awkward compromise, and given that Toshiba’s far tinier Portégé R500 (reviewed in issue 9) managed to squeeze one in for around £350 less, the Asus has little excuse. Factor in the mind-bogglingly high price and there’s simply no amount of leather trim and magnesium alloy that can make this laptop appear like good value for money.
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