Asus U46SV review

An Ultrabook such as the Asus ZenBook UX31 might be the ultimate luxury for frequent travellers with deep pockets, but we suspect most people would prefer to carry a little extra weight and save a few hundred pounds by opting for a traditional ultra-portable laptop such as this Asus U46SV. With an internal optical drive and dedicated graphics, this £700 laptop fits plenty of features into a compact 14in chassis.

At 2.1kg, the U46 range just squeezes into the ultra-portable category, but the laptop has an incredibly svelte 2cm thick chassis that makes it ideal for slipping in and out of a laptop bag. Despite its size, Asus has still managed to squeeze in a standard, rather than low-voltage, Intel Core i5 processor and a dedicated Nvidia graphics card, which should make it more than capable of handling both desktop and 3D applications. Combined with 4GB of RAM, it managed an impressive 51 overall in our multimedia benchmarks – the Dual-core i5-2410m uses Intel’s Turbo Boost technology to go from 2.3GHz to 2.9GHz in lightly-threaded tasks, explaining the high 67 it scored in our image editing test.

It has the Professional version of Windows 7 installed, which would suggest the U46SV is targeted at business users, but the laptop’s Nvidia GeForce GT 540m graphics card is more than capable of playing modern games. In our Dirt 3 test, it managed a very smooth 40.2fps at 1,280×720. Most titles should be playable, although you might need to turn down some settings to play at the native 1,366×768 screen resolution.

The laptop switches to the processor’s built-in graphics when gaming power isn’t needed, which helped the U46SV to an astounding nine hours in our light use test, so you could spend the entire day away from the mains.

The Asus U46SV was fantastic to use for everyday tasks thanks to its well-built QWERTY keyboard – each full size key has a very springy action that made typing both smooth and responsive. There was minimal flex in the keyboard tray and, despite the lack of a numerical keypad, we appreciated that all the punctuation keys were in their standard locations. The large touchpad is ideally suited to the 14in display, as we could span the entire desktop in a single movement. The buttons directly below it felt a little loose, but still produced a firm click when pressed.

We were impressed with the U46SV’s 14in display, although it’s a shame it only has a 1,366×768 screen resolution – some laptops, such as the MacBook Pro, squeeze in 1,440×900 pixels. Even so, images were still very sharp and colours were vibrant. A glossy finish makes it difficult to use in direct sunlight or under harsh office lighting, but there’s enough screen tilt to find a decent viewing angle.

The Sonic Focus Synopsis audio enhancement software is preinstalled on every U46, but this is in effect just a graphic equaliser – the downward firing speakers sounded barely any better than other laptops we’ve listened to recently. There wasn’t much bass, but at least the mid-range and high-end were reasonably clear.

Although it can’t display Full HD videos on its built-in screen, the U46SV is still well-suited to multimedia playback – as well as a large 500GB hard disk to store your music and photos, the internal optical drive will let you play DVDs. Intel’s WiDi wireless display technology is supported, so you can connect to an external display wirelessly through a WiDi-compatible receiver. Other connectivity is reasonable – three USB ports, of which only one supports the faster USB3 standard, and a multi-format card reader should provide enough expandability for most people.

If you want an ultra-portable laptop but need more features than an Ultrabook can provide, the U46SV is a good buy – its impressive performance, in both desktop applications and 3D games, superb battery life and fantastic looks make it difficult to beat for the price. If you’re not interested in the best gaming performance the Dell XPS 14z has a better screen and feels classier, but the U46SV is still an impressive all-round laptop for the price.