page-5 | Asus X70IO-TY021C. Heavy multimedia laptop | Laptops

Asus X70IO-TY021C. Heavy multimedia laptop - Physical aspects continued

Monday, 17 August 2009 18:00 Laptopfreak

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Article Index
Asus X70IO-TY021C. Heavy multimedia laptop
Specifications
Package contents
Physical aspects
Physical aspects continued
Benchmark
Benchmark continued
Conclusion
All Pages

Page 5 of 8

The left side:

Overview:

It is absolutely awesome they managed to fit an HDMI port on this model – that they hid it away on the rear was presumably for practical reasons.

There are also plenty of USB ports, but nothing special besides that – the average family will probably appreciate the SD card reader though.

Diodes:

The diodes are very discreet on this model. They are located by the power button, showing the status of WiFi, Caps Lock, and Num Lock. All shine with a green light, as does the power button. The rest of the diodes are located by the touchpad and shine with a red or green light. Nice the indicators do not play a very prominent role.

Keyboard and touchpad:

The keyboard is of great size, and the addition of a numpad is much appreciated; it is something you often miss on laptops if you work with numbers. The buttons are quite silent and have a comfortable “click” feeling. A bit of backlight would have been nice for when you use it in the dark though.

The touchpad is integrated in the plastic of the chassis as an indentation. They did give it a bit of texture so you can at least feel it, but nothing else. In my opinion they could have done a little more than that. The buttons work well enough and are sufficiently large, as is the touchpad itself.

Display:

The display is nice and big, being 17.3 inches large. It might be a bit overwhelming for some, but I think it is nice with a big one that allows you to, well, see more and run a higher resolution – 1600x900px to be exact. It is razor sharp with vivid colours, but very glossy and suffers quite a bit from glare. That is pretty annoying, especially if you work outside or by a window.

The microphone and webcam work well, and 1.3MP is more than enough for video conferences.

As a new part of our reviews we now test displays for pixel errors and faults in the backlighting, using a program called MonitorTest. It works by, for example, blackening the entire display which will expose pixel errors, i.e. areas that do not change colour. This will also allow you to see if the backlighting is uneven.

I found no errors whatsoever on this display...nothing wrong with the colours, backlighting or any dead pixels. Great stuff.

Sound and speakers
The audial aspect is very impressive. You actually do get the surround sound in this model, and it plays music beautifully, especially when you consider it is just a laptop. It can definitely replace a couple of smaller desktop speakers, which greatly helps in justifying it as a multimedia laptop.
It plays both the higher and lower notes well, and you really get a sense of surround sound when you listen to music or watch movies that incorporate that effect.
This also goes to show this computer can easily meet the requirements of the entire family, from music and gaming to working and surfing, as well as photos and videos.
Noise, heat and power consumption

The computer is fairly silent and hardly annoying when loading away atop a table, which is good. It dissipates heat very well, at least it is not something you will really feel, for it blows out all the hot air at the rear.

It balances quite well in this aspect all in all, however it uses a lot of power when running and the battery test further down will show how quickly it can drain the battery.