Asus S6F

Pros Excellent design; compact; generous connectivity options; long battery life Cons Expensive; cramped keyboard; stiff mouse-pad buttons; too-reflective screen Editors' Take A stylish, leather-clad ultraportable that's a winner for highly mobile users with deep pockets Key Specs Processor: 1.66GHz Core Duo L2300 Memory: 1GB DDR2 Storage: 80GB hard drive Optical Drives: Double-layer DVD±RW Display: 11.1-inch TFT Operating System: Windows XP Professional Review Reviewed by: Louis Ramirez Review Date: November 2006 One of the best ultraportables we've seen, the $2,699 Asus S6F delivers style and performance—but at a high price. The first thing you'll notice about this 3.3-pounder is its case, which is covered in genuine leather and available in three shades: chocolate brown, camel, and a limited-edition hot pink. Asus also bundles a matching leather-covered mouse and a carrying bag. Thanks to its 1,366x768 resolution, the S6F's 11.1-inch wide-screen display looks nice and crisp, although we found its glossy coating a bit too reflective. A small button just below the LCD lets you toggle among seven different power modes, including ones for high performance, movie viewing, and battery conservation. Like those of many ultraportables, the S6F's keyboard is a little cramped. Also, the buttons on the mouse pad are somewhat stiff. The S6F offers a generous set of connections for a small notebook, including three USB 2.0 ports, a four-pin FireWire port, a VGA out, an ExpressCard slot, and a flash-card reader. Networking options include Ethernet, 802.11b/g wireless, and Bluetooth. You also get a convenient on/off switch for the Wi-Fi radio. In our benchmark tests, the Asus S6F performed very well for an ultraportable. Thanks to its Intel dual-core processor, it outpaced the Intel Core Solo-based Sony VAIO VGN-TXN15P on our FutureMark PCMark05 application test, earning a relatively-high score of 2,856. The S6F also completed our Windows Media Encoder test in 11 minutes and 20 seconds (less than half the time the VAIO took), proving it has multimedia chops as well. Battery life was less spectacular. We squeezed out 3 hours and 30 minutes of juice in our DVD drain test--a respectable score for an ultraportable, but still more than two hours shy of the VAIO VGN-TXN15P's excellent battery life.