Photo Review of the Asus U1F

We are here to talk about the new ultraportable from ASUS, the U1F. Basically, it's a 1.06 Ghz Core Duo, 1g RAM and 80 Gb HDD laptop, weighting around 1 kg! Oh, and did I say it comes with Vista professional installed?

As to the U1F looks , it is very stylish with a sleek black coating (so called "piano-lid) in the spirit of the LG chocolate phone, and black leather under the keyboard (where you rest your palms).
Admittedly, the black coating is a kind of "fingerprints-magnet", but there is a special tissue given by ASUS which can be used as a cleaner. There is also a LCD cleaning cloth. More generally, the ASUS bundle is, as usual, very generous, since you get two batteries (3-cells and 6-cells), a bluetooth mouse (black), a case for the U1F and the external DVD burner (which is a bit big, but at least draws power from the U1, so that you don't need any external power source).
Even the box where the U1F originally is very "classy". It is without doubts the most beautiful laptop I have ever own.

As to the performances, well, of course, because of the slow hard drive (4200rpm) and the not-too-powerful processor, this is not a beast. You won't get to play your latest 3D games either. The boot time is a bit slow to my liking, since it averages 2'30", but going out of hibernate only takes 40 seconds which is ok.
Actually, I expected it to be more slow than it is. I use it to compile LaTeX files with Emacs, or to run Mathematica files, draw graphs with Illustrator and it gets the job done, albeit a bit more slowly than my iMac. Opening Illustrator takes a bit of time, but hey, this is Adobe!

As to battery life, I haven't made any scientific test, but it seems than one can expect at most 2 hours with the 3-cell battery, and 4 hours with the bigger one with wifi on, and between 25 and 50% of brightness. I have installed RMclock to downclock it a bit, but I am not yet sure that it really helps.

As to the keyboard, I have to say that I am quite pleased with it. Back in the days when I had a 10"6 TR1MP, I found the keyboard quite small and not very practical. I don't know if the keyboard is bigger in the U1F, but although it is definitely not fully-sized, it is very convenient. I don't make that many typing mistakes, and I would even go as far as saying that I type faster on my U1F than on the regular keyboard of my iMac. Anyhow, I am not afraid of doing long typing sessions with the U1. I think it comes from that fact that the keys are conveniently spaced which reduces mistakes.

Finally, one note about the screen size and the resolution: I was fearing that it would be too small for me, but I like it in fact since the high resolution allows for a lot of screen estate. However, I have yet to use it for a day's work, and I guess that after such a long time it might get a bit tiring. But I got used to this resolution very quickly.

There is also a fingerprint reader and a webcam, but I have disabled the fingerprint since I don't use it, and I haven't really tried the camera. It looks like it might take decent pictures, but as to videos, I don't know. There are a lot of options and settings that I haven't had time to explore yet.

I will post more comments as I get to discover it a bit more and I have more time! Next week, I will certainly try to install Linux on it, either Ubuntu or Sabayon.

Overall, I can say that I am quite pleased with Uranie. Oh yeah, I have named her Uranie because the U1 really is girl-like in my opinion, since she is so small and so pretty. My girlfriend does not really agree, but hey, this is my call.

EDIT: new pics and a link towards a french forum about the U1F:
Forum-hardware
Also, I forgot to say that there is a memory card reader which reads SD card, and MS pro.