ASUS UL50Vf Notebook Review – NVIDIA Optimus Takes the Stage

ASUS UL50Vf Tour

The exterior of the ASUS UL50Vf’s LCD is a brushed aluminum outer shell. It was definitely different feeling the cool aluminum when opening the UL50Vf. We did seem to notice that the tension that keeps the LCD closed seems to be a little too high for this light-weight notebook. You must use two hands in order to open the UL50Vf.

Once we open the 15.6″ 1366×768 LCD, we see the rest of the UL50Vf is the high-gloss plastic that we see on so many of ASUS’ other notebooks. As we have observed in the past, the high-gloss finish adds a slick look, but as soon as you start to touch and use it, the finger prints and smudges soon hide the elegant finish. ASUS is working towards more matte finishes like the one we saw on the G73Jh.

The webcam and mic are located in the usual spot on the ASUS UL50Vf which is embedded in the top bezel of the LCD. This on-the-go notebook uses the standard 0.3MP webcam.

With the widescreen 15.6″ LCD comes more room for the keyboard. The keyboard on the UL50Vf is 348mm and includes a numeric keypad. Granted, the keys on the numeric keypad are narrower than the width of the letter keys.

The UL50Vf uses the raised-dot trackpad which we have had mixed feelings for in the past. While it gets the job done and is definitely innovative technology, it uses the plastic chassis as the background material which is not the best for gliding an oily finger smoothly.

On the left side of the ASUS UL50Vf we have the power input, exhaust vent, 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS-Pro, XD), HDMI port, two USB 2.0 ports, mic input and headphone jack.

On the right side of the ASUS UL50Vf we have a third USB 2.0 port, optical drive, RJ45 LAN jack, D-Sub VGA output and a security lock port. As with the UL80Vt, the optical drive on the UL50Vf has a bezel at a steep angle that makes it a little difficult to find and press the eject button. Not too big of a deal, but was an observation that we made multiple times.

There are no ports on the back of the ASUS UL50Vf, but you can see the 8-cell battery installed.

Here we see the bottom of the ASUS UL50Vf. This is a pretty standard layout that we see on many notebooks. You can see the built-in Altec Lansing stereo speakers located at the bottom of the pic.

When we removed the panel, we see we have access to the 4GB of DDR3 1066 MHz memory that runs in dual channel. We also have access to the SATA hard drive.

The hard drive is easily removed from the UL50Vf after removing some screws. Here we see our UL50Vf had a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 320GB HDD. Like the model number dictates, this drive spins at 5400 RPMs.

Here we see both of the SO-DIMM memory slots that operate in dual channel. Installed are 2x2GB Hynix PC3-8500 memory that operates at DDR3 1066MHz.

And last, but certainly not least, we see the 8-cell 5600mAh battery that is the source of many hours of battery life. The UL50Vt is advertised to get more than 12 hours of battery life off a full charge. We will see soon how long the UL50Vf lasts.