By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
21/06/2007
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050488,40616221p,00.htm

With a choice of two colors and a 13.3-inch display, the Asus W7S may seem to be a MacBook wannabe. However, its powerful performance sets it apart from its competitors. Based on the latest Santa Rosa chipset--which boosts the frontside bus speed up to a maximum of 800MHz--and coupled with an Nvidia discrete graphics card, users who need superior computing power but are unwilling to drag a heavy notebook around will appreciate this model. With the exception of Sony's SZ series, which is based on the previous-generation Centrino platform, the W7S may also be the only machine around capable of playing midrange games.

Editors' note : Asus has confirmed that the optional extended battery is available for S$320 and can be ordered from the service center.

	The W7S is available in two colors. (Click for larger image)

Design
Made from matt plastic, the body of the Asus feels a little too smooth for a secure grip. The upside, however, is that chassis does not pick up fingerprints easily and should be relatively maintenance-free. There is a choice of two colors, black and white. We did not like the design of the built-in Webcam. Resembling an out-of-place metal bar at the top of the display, it seriously mars an otherwise clean and sleek profile. The W7S occupies a volume of 315 x 226.5 x 36.9mm, which is a little thick for its class.

The Asus W7S incorporates a latchless system, though unlike the MacBook the screen is held closed by the strength of the hinge rather than magnets. With the standard cell, the entire machine weighs in at 1.95kg, significantly lighter than Apple's offering but bested by a small margin by Sony's SZ series and the BenQ Joybook S31V.

Despite its 13.3-inch widescreen and discrete graphics card (GPU), the Asus W7S does not target the entertainment crowd. Hence, dedicated multimedia controls are limited to volume adjustments. Another two buttons activate the wireless radios and power settings for the machine.

The placement of the ports are well-thought-out, with the commonly used USB evenly spread along the sides and the rear of the unit. We also like the use of a jog dial for volume control. However, the VGA-out port does not allow the display cable to be securely screwed into place, though it is really just a minor quibble.

Features
The Asus W7S is an excellent balance between portability, performance and features. Billed with the tagline "video conference on the go", the mobile is equipped with a 1.3-megapixel Webcam for this purpose. However, it lacks the dual digital microphones present in some notebooks and a quick launch button (like the Skype shortcut found in the NEC Versa E6200).

The 13.3-inch widescreen display is of the transflective variety, which has excellent performance indoors but results in distracting reflections under bright conditions. It is capable of 1,024 x 800-pixel resolution and is powered by an Nvidia GeForce Go 8400M G video card with 128MB of dedicated VRAM. Though it may have issues pumping out high frame rates for newer first person shooter games, the W7S should have no issues running less graphically intense titles.

The 1.3-megapixel Webcam sits above the display. (Click for larger image)

Like most notebook speakers, do not expect stellar sound quality. Fortunately, the audio output is S/PDIF-compliant, which means you can stream digital signals directly to your favorite horns.

Connectivity-wise, all the usual suspects are lined up and ready to go. Three USB 2.0, mini-FireWire and an ExpressCard/54 slot are present and accounted for. External displays can be hooked up to the VGA or S-video ports, though we were slightly disappointed that this Santa Rosa system did not take advantage of the higher-quality HDMI standard. A modem and Gigabit Ethernet port handle wired networks, with 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth work the wireless waves. A memory card reader above the optical drive handles the SD, MMC, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro formats.

Since this is not classed as a business portable, we were surprised to see a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip residing under the hood. Though it is usually seen in conjunction with a biometric fingerprint sensor, users who are paranoid about password theft will feel a little safer that their codes are stored on the TPM hardware, making it harder to crack.

The keyboard is full-sized and comfortable to use for extended typing. A touchpad located below allows for cursor control and provides reasonable tactile feedback. The Super Multi DVD drive is able to handle almost all current optical formats (except Blu-ray and HD-DVD) and comes with the LightScribe feature which allows you to label compatible discs.

Performance And Battery Life
Our review unit held a Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz processor, 1GB RAM and 160GB of storage space. The actual retail unit has a slower 2.0GHz chip and comes bundled with two six-cell batteries for S$3,198. It's a little pricey, but you also get Windows Vista Ultimate Edition preinstalled.

As MobileMark is yet to be Vista-certified, we could not do comparisons with previous reviews. Instead, we could run commonly used applications like Office and Photoshop with no issues. Even games like F.E.A.R and Half-Life 2 were definitely playable on the W7S, though not at maximum resolutions.

We ran The Incredibles DVD at half screen brightness and with the volume turned up. Since we did not wish to be arrested for noise pollution, we plugged in a set of earphones to save our neighbor's sanity. The W7S gave up the ghost after a whopping 2 hours 53 minutes on the standard battery. An optional extended battery with nine cells is also available for S$320 at the Asus service center.

Service And Support
Asus offers a two-year limited global warranty with all its notebooks, with an additional one-year local warranty only for Singapore units. Should a problem occur with the unit, you can send it to any Asus service center around the world for the first two years and get it repaired using the warranty card. Issues during the third year of coverage can only be resolved in Singapore service centers. For users who travel overseas often, having a global warranty is important. However, the Asus service overseas centers should be checked for accessibility. Asus Web site provides software support and updates as well as a telephone hotline number.