Taking a different approach to the more powerful and expensive ultrabooks of many of its competitors, the ASUS S56CA-WH31, although an entry level offering in specifications and price nevertheless has some features they often leave out.
Ultrabooks are notebooks that are as small and portable as possible without losing out too much on performance and battery life. Often compromises are made, like leaving out optical drives and ethernet ports to save weight and space. The ASUS S56CA-WH31 running Windows 8 and released early November 2012, has both and a lot more and priced at only around $500 has set the standard for entry level laptops in general.
For those needing the screen size as well as portability and perfomance the ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6-Inch Ultrabook is powerful enough for day-to-day needs and is ideally suited to college students or mobile users and professionals who need the usual productivity, multimedia, web surfing, image and entry-level video editing capabilities in their laptops.
Click here to see what others are saying...- 15.6 inch display ultrabook
- Good everyday performance
- Not for serious gaming
- Not a touch screen
Performance-wise the ASUS S56CA-WH31 has an Intel Core i3-3217U 1.8 GHz CPU (processor), "U" meaning an ultra-low-voltage chip designed to help with battery life, along with 4GB of RAM memory, adequate for most daily tasks and expandable to a maximum of 8GB. A "hybrid drive" configuration is also used to make the most of the "Smart Response Technology" of Intel's processor. The smaller capacity, but much higher speed, 24GB solid-state-drive (SSD) is used to temporarily "cache" (store) data that is immediately needed. The 500GB conventional hard disk drive (HDD) provides ample, primary storage for documents, files, movies, music and so on. The result is much faster than just a conventional HDD, with only marginal higher cost, and is much cheaper than an all SSD solution. This gives you smooth multitasking and is most evident in the quick startup of applications and superfast boot time for Windows 8. Add in ASUS Super Hybrid Engine II technology and you also get 2-second resumption from sleep mode and up to 13 days standby time with the extra benefit that it automatically saves your data if the battery drops below 5 percent, so you don't lose any work in progress.
The 15.6-inch, LED-backlit, 16:9 widescreen HD display running at a native resolution of 1366 x 768, while not full HD, is in keeping with the apparent goal to keep the ASUS S56CA-WH31 at the lower end of the price scale. So is the use of integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 which won't satisfy serious gamers, but it will run many of the latest PC games on lower settings. Graphics power is more than suffient for all day-to-day computing as well as basic video editing and also crisp enough for viewing and editing photos. At 14.9 inches (W) x 10.5 inches (D) x 0.83 inches (H) and a weight 4.6lbs (with battery), the ASUS S56CA-WH31 is streamlined and sleek. Some more weight and space could have been saved, but it does have a 15.6 inch screen and as previously mentioned they've also squeezed in an optical drive (SuperMulti DVD burner), unlike many other ultrabooks. The single-piece molded housing is robust, rigid and up to the day-to-day bumps and scrapes. You should get around 5 hours battery life in continuous use for general computing and it charges up very quickly.
ASUS SonicMaster Lite technology provides more powerful sound and better audio performance for this type of laptop and the touchpad feels natural and intuitive for fingertip use. The ASUS S56CA-WH31 also has most of the other inclusions you'd expect like two USB 2.0 ports for peripherals like printers, one USB 3.0 port for faster data transfer to external drives, a wired network port (gigabit ethernet), integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless, an SD card reader, a VGA port for old style monitor connections, a HDMI port for HDTV's, even a mini display port for newer external displays and a combination audio jack for microphone and headphones. A built-in HD web cam takes adequate pictures and allows face-to-face chat. Though some users mention receiving units with Bluetooth built-in, ASUS's specifications state it is optional, so if you need this make sure to check.
For those wanting an ultrabook with a larger screen the ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6-Inch Ultrabook successfully balances cost against performance. It makes compromises in the right areas to arrive at a reasonably powerful, portable laptop keenly priced at just under $500 and ideal for mobile users on a budget.
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