ASUS N53JF: Midrange 15.6” 1080p, Take Four
by Jarred Walton on December 28, 2010 1:40 AM ESTASUS N53JF Battery Life: Not Bad for 48Wh, but Please Give Us 63Wh!
We’ve complained about the use of older and smaller 48Wh batteries in midrange notebooks quite a few times, but the N53JF continues that trend. That puts it at a definite disadvantage relative to Dell XPS’ 56Wh battery, as well as Compal’s 58Wh and Clevo’s 62Wh offerings. But higher capacity isn’t the only game in town; making better use of that capacity is still possible with BIOS and hardware optimizations, and ASUS does very well in this regard. Combined with NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology, we end up with roughly four hours of useful battery life, or just under 2.5 hours of H.264 playback.
ASUS also has their “Super Hybrid Engine” available, which underclocks the CPU and locks the maximum multiplier when enabled. We test with modified Power Saver settings normally, which already locks the CPU multiplier to the minimum, but SHE is still able to wring an extra few minutes out of the battery. We left it enabled for the battery life testing, so the results are the best-case scenario. We also disable any unnecessary utilities and software, and set the LCD to 100nits (45% in this case).
Despite having a smaller battery, ASUS beats the Clevo notebook in two of the three tests. The Compal result on the other hand isn’t so surprising, given the always-on GPU. We commented in the past that the Dell XPS had a substandard Internet result (despite multiple test runs), and that shows up again as the one inexplicable loss to the ASUS. In general, though, battery life is decent and enough for typical users. You’ll still want the power brick handy if you play any games or want to watch a Blu-ray from an actual disc, however—we measured just 90 minutes playing an 35Mbps AVC Blu-ray video (Jumper).
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - link
Look, it's not like we *try* to put fingerprints all over the laptops. Just regular use will put them there, even if you're careful (which I am). If I walked around with white gloves on all the time, it wouldn't be a problem, but I'm not going to do that. Saying "just use your thumb" doesn't entirely fix the problem either, because you WILL overlap into the glossy area every time. A better solution, amazingly enough, is to stop using stupid piano black glossy plastic on laptops. There, problem solved, and it wouldn't cost anything extra.IanWorthington - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Got to take issue with this "brighter is better". Maybe for some stuff but for photo editing, where you would care about color gamut, even 100 cd/m2 is likely to be over bright for accurate work.i
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
You can always turn it down if you need to, but if you're outside and can't read the display because it's not bright enough (I've had that happen with numerous laptops over the years), then brighter *is* better. Apple does this with MacBook Pro, where they get up to 350nits or something, but you can always set it to 50% or 100nits or whatever if that's what you need/like.blackrook - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Now I'm just getting confused with ASUS's naming schemes. What does the N in N53 mean? The K? U? UL? G?It's the same with video cards, what with the GTX460 1GB/768MB/SE or the 5850 > 6850 business. Companies need to differentiate their product lines more intuitively.
86waterpumper - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
I agree that displays have slipped lately. I am building a new desktop rig currently, and I hate the 16:9 displays enough that I am sticking to a old dell 4:3 17 inch. Pretty sad I would need a 24" or something to even match the height of it. My wife has a 17.3 hp dv7 laptop, and she downloaded the amazon kindle software. I double clicked it to check it out, and opened up a book...It looked hilarious to see the middle 1/4 of the screen being used and nothing on the sides, all of these apps and programs are going to have to start allowing for wrapping and double width viewing if this stupid trend continues. I literally wanted to turn the screen sideways it would have been much better.I tell you another problem too with the piano black glossy finishes. Our daughter is 7, and uses the laptop sometimes for schoolwork or to look at disney website etc. A very heavy laptop is a pain even for me to carry with such a slick surface. It is utter stupidity!!! I wonder how many people have dropped their expensive laptops and ruined them due to this. I always make sure my hands are 100 percent dry before carrying the thing, but it's really tough for my daughter which is why I have started to let her use my much lighter netbook more. Anyway a rougher, matte finish would provide tons more grip and look better on the fingerprint front as well. I can imagine the pain in the tail it must be for people doing these reviews to try to get the thing fingerprint free under camera flash.
Luke2.0 - Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - link
Hi Jarred, can the "Blu-ray Combo" do DVD-burning?Thank you.
chemist1 - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
If you google the drive name listed in the spec table at the beginning of the review ( "Philips/Lite-On DS-4E1S") you can get the full tech specs. But from what I vaguely recall, this drive can burn CD and DVD, but it's read-only for Blu-Ray.JarredWalton - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
Correct: this is DVDRW and BD-ROM. I would say "BD-ROM/DVD-ROM" otherwise, but I suppose you have no way of knowing that. :-)Luke2.0 - Thursday, December 30, 2010 - link
Thank you for answering my previous question.Got another question though: The spec table shows only 1 HDD. Does this laptop support dual HDD, or SSD-HDD combo?
IMO It'd be a shame as a 15-incher not to be capable of it.
I have checked Asus International and it does not seems to support it, but could you please confirm?
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=zzD4OFFWhspr...
Thank you again.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 31, 2010 - link
There's no room for a second HDD. If you wanted to get creative, you could try removing the optical drive and installing a second drive there, but ASUS doesn't sell the necessary caddy so you're pretty much on your own. Actually, very few 15.6" or smaller laptops have room for two drives in my experience; that's usually a feature of 17" notebooks, or special laptops that skip out on other items in order to fit two 2.5" drives. Granted, there are exceptions, but I don't think we've reviewed any in the past year at least.