ASUS U30Jc: Refining Thin and Light Performance
by Jarred Walton on May 18, 2010 11:23 PM ESTASUS U30Jc LCD Analysis
I've often said that I prefer matte LCDs on laptops. Most of that comes from my experience using laptops outside, or at least near windows where I get some horrible reflections on the glossy displays. Like most consumer laptops, the U30Jc goes the glossy route, and like most inexpensive laptops it also uses a low contrast LCD panel. We don't like all the corner cutting that happens on LCDs, but unfortunately most manufacturers don't see LCD quality as something they can easily use to differentiate their system from the competition. And if you're trying to get shelf space at Best Buy, you're pretty much given a price target that you have to hit or you don't get in the door. $900 to $1000 is a pretty hard price cap for them, and so it's little surprise that LCD quality is once again sacrificed in pursuit of keeping costs down.
The test results above confirm our suspicions that this is yet another lousy laptop display (YALLD?). Contrast ratio is in the middle of the pack, but at 211:1 all of these displays are very poor. The 200nits white level is fine, and color accuracy is actually slightly better than most laptops (notice that the spikes on the U30Jc are only 3.5 to 4.5 instead of the 6.0 to 8.0 spikes on many other laptops). However, decent color accuracy isn't something most users will notice (or need) whereas a good contrast ratio can make a good impression.
Viewing angles are par for the course. It surprises me when I see other reviews talking about the display being "above average" or having good black levels. To be clear, a black level of nearly 1.0nits qualifies as pretty severe backlight bleed and is in no way "black". For a display running at 200nits, we would like black levels closer to .30nits. ASUS has done this (and more) with the 1005HA, 1001P, and the G73Jh; now we just need better quality displays in their nicer "budget midrange" offerings.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, May 20, 2010 - link
I'll try running that once as a reference point. Is there a way to loop a PowerPoint slide? I'm guessing that's what you mean: external display, PowerPoint, and battery power right?Furuno - Friday, May 21, 2010 - link
Yes. And for looping the slide, you can set it by going to the Slide Show menu and pressing the Set Up Slide Show Button, and there's should be a loop continuosly checkbox in the dialogue box. Oh, and you'll need to adjust the Advance Slide option under Transition Menu.Best regards,
Furuno
MacGyver85 - Thursday, May 20, 2010 - link
Excellent article, thanks for the thorough and honest review.The only thing that keeps me away from buying these (or any) laptops is the abysmal display quality.
Maybe you guys could literally set the bar for the manufacturers ?!
You could add bars to the display graphs that would say: abysmal, decent, good, industry leading quality or something similar.
That way we'd see at a glimpse what is worth buying and what is not in this category.
Hopefully it will encourage more manufacturers to give higher priority to a good panel instead of those extra few percentages of processor performance.
Setsunayaki - Friday, May 21, 2010 - link
4 hours of DVD playback time isn't so bad, though the idle state gives us a 550 minute battery life.The important thing with a laptop, which is being challenged lately by the latest cell phones is application speed.
An example:
Task: Taking an image on site and sending it to all your friends.
I used to use laptops for this, way before cell phones had cameras....I used to take a picture on a digital camera, then upload them to my laptop by USB. I then would have to find some Wireless Network out there...or Wired Connection to deal with the internet...and then send an email to everyone with Attachment. This takes forever on a laptop....
Today I can just get to the site or target location.....I can sneak around and take an image with a phone....and then I can use the 3G coverage of an area and send an email with that attachment to everyone to everyone in my list...All in the time it takes for a laptop to start up and set up.
The more laptops try to take the role of mobile-desktops, the farther they will drift from the concepts of what mobility (and stealth) brings to the table, and the slower they will become each generation against cell phones.
There is a reason why more people today buy an iPhone or GooglePhone these days....
Specially the idea that voice recognition software is becoming more and more common....Its fun to be able to say something and have it record a note, or dial a number....
I can say "I need to buy eggs and bread" and walk into a store and play it back.....than having to type it.
The more they try to make a laptop into a mobile-desktop, the more mobility it actually loses and the slower it becomes vs the cell phone craze...Yes, its amazing how a $3000 laptop doesnt hold a candle to the speed one can do things on the IPhones and other Phones out there that compete against it.
T2k - Monday, May 24, 2010 - link
Seriously: LIGHT at almost 5lbs?I hope Asus paid a lot for this piece - it would be awful to realize you just made a complete fool of yourself publicly for chump change...
Alexo - Saturday, July 10, 2010 - link
Can you get your hands on a PL30JT?Supposed to have an i5 processor and a matte screen, maybe a little better battery life as well.
I would love for you to review it (or even a quick comparison with the U30JC).
Thanks,
Alex.
mrmbmh - Saturday, September 4, 2010 - link
very very useful article for me!I've found Vaio S Series a good competitor against this laptop...same weight...same processor...same graphic chip... but there are a few articles about S series.. and seriously... This website is one of the few websites I can trust :)
So can you read an article about S series? I love U30jc but as you mentioned it has a poor screen... I think vaio makes better displays...
thanks anyway...