The good: Leather lid and palm rest; integrated DVD writer; HDMI output.

The bad: Uncomfortable keyboard.

The bottom line: The ASUS U2E is a fantastic laptop. It's far slower than rivals such as the Sony VAIO TZ series or MacBook Air, but it's stylish, feature-rich and in many ways more desirable than many of the alternatives.

Read full review of the Asus U2E »

By Rory Reid, CNET.co.uk
May 15, 2008

Back when we reviewed the Asus U1f, it was one of the most stylish ultraportables of its time. Now, just over a year later, Asus has released its natural successor, the U2E.

It also has an 11.1-inch widescreen display and is unashamedly sexy. But the U2E ditches the smudge-tastic piano black seen on the U1 in favor of real cow hide--lovingly stretched over the lid and palm rest. It also incorporates a built-in optical drive and comes in two flavours--a black entry-level model, and a mocha brown special edition that ships with a 32GB solid state hard drive.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.uk. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

The U2E is the epitome of style. The vast majority of the lid is swathed in genuine leather, as are the wrist rest and areas surrounding the left and ride sides of the keyboard. Asus says this is real leather and, unless it's gone to the extreme lengths of spraying the laptop with cow-scented perfume, we're willing to accept its claims.

Leather on its own does not an attractive laptop make, so Asus has thrown in some extra flair. The hinge has a shiny gunmetal finish that's visible whether the lid is open or closed, and more gunmetal can be seen on a mottled strip directly above the keyboard and at the front edge of the laptop. The whole effect is stunning. When you see a U2E in the flesh, it will melt your icy, geek heart.



The U2E is an ultraportable, which means it's very small--277 x 194 x 24mm--and very light at 1.25kg. Despite these petite dimensions, it packs a shedload of features. Most notably, you get a DVD writer drive crammed into the recesses of the right-hand side. You also get three USB ports--two on the left, one on the right--as well as analog D-Sub and HDMI video outputs. Also, let's not forget the fingerprint reader, 0.3-megapixel Webcam, Ethernet port and modem jack. All this in a chassis smaller, lighter and less expensive than the MacBook Air. Apple, are you listening?

Ultraportable laptops have a tendency to sacrifice usability for portability--in other words you can take it anywhere, but you'll find yourself inconvenienced if you use them for any great length of time. The U2E should be fine for many users, but those with unusually large hands should be aware that the keys are very closely packed together, meaning you have to be more precise with your typing than you'd need to be with an ordinary desktop keyboard. If you're at the keyboard for hours at a time, you'll almost certainly feel a cramp.

Features

A quick glance at the Asus U2E's specification tells us what sort of crowd it's aimed at. It uses a 1.06GHz Intel U7500 ultra-low voltage CPU, which is slow but steady. It's designed to prolong battery life, save the planet and tuck animals into bed--except cows. There's plenty of memory to assist the CPU--2GB of DDR2 in the black U2E and 4GB in the mocha brown version. The whole thing runs on top of Intel's GM965 chipset.



Storage in the U2E is an interesting topic. The standard model uses a 120GB hard drive of the 1.8-inch laptop variety. This is divided across two partitions, one 55GB segment that houses the operating system and any associated applications, and another 48GB segment where you can dump miscellaneous data. The rest of the space is assigned to a hidden recovery partition.

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