Asus W5F == Hawt!

I’m not going to go into a detailed review with performance specs and what not (they’re floating around the web already, no?), but just a quick take.

Purchased the notebook last week from Geared2Play (you can find details in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=52014).

Price was right and service from G2P was good (wife said the man on the line (Eddie?) was friendly and knowledgeable).

Notebook was shipped Friday and I received it today in the afternoon with a great deal of anticipation.

First of all, the W5F is gorgeous in person. Incredibly sexy and attention grabbing. Coming from an S1A previosly, the W5F is an increase in weight (S1A was incredibly light, though). However, the weight is put to good use; whereas the S1A would creak under torsional stress, the W5F is solid. This is one of the most solid notebooks I’ve felt in a long time. No creaking; very rigid chasis.

The screen was a big surprise. The S1A really suffered in this respect as the screen was of very poor quality in terms of brightness and dot pitch. The W5F screen is beautiful. Incredibly vivid and sharp. The pictures came out a bit grainy due to the high ISO, but trust me, the screen is incredibly sharp and the contrast is excellent. I have to admit that the widescreen format makes it seem like the screen real estate is much larger than it actually is.

Haven’t tried out many of the features yet as it will be wiped and OS reinstalled (wife needs to use it at work (elementary school) on a domain). The bluetooth worked out of the box with a bit of setup (hint: to get the mouse to connect, press and hold the reset button at the bottom). The mouse was a great addition, Bluetooth no less. Unlike the S1A, W5F does not ship with a carrying case. Not a big deal as we have tons at home

Setting up the network was a trial. It was pretty confusing (see the screenshots below) as I could get a signal and an IP from the router, but I couldn’t access the network (no ping response from the router even). I had to fiddle around and reboot the machine to get it to work. The Intel software didn’t help much (see screen).

(Some shots are grainy from high ISO)

Waited for UPS all day for this!

A box inside the box…

Yet another box….

Finally, the goods!

Size comparison to V3 Razr.

Not as slim as the S1A, but S1A had a modular CD-R/W drive.

Widescreen goodness.

Orange light is badass.

Keyboard has excellent texture and feedback. The touchpad texture is nice too (although it’ll probably wear off after a while I assume).

Screen is very nice; much better than anticipated.

Very nice “soft” LED lights. The touchpad is actually textured (those little gray dots are bumps).

Incredibly vivid; the green shows the contrast much better.

Viewing angle is not bad! Much better than S1A and even better than my Chembook (Compal).

From the other side…

Vertical viewing angle suffers a bit, but acceptable.

Uh….what “Wireless On” option???

Widescreen looks good.

Another shot…

Open from the side.

All in all? Better than expected. I had high hopes (rightfully so for a $1700 notebook), but this notebook (so far) has exceeded them. Beautiful looks, snappy performance (primarily office usage and web browsing), decent weight, and great build quality.