ASUS U35Jc: Jogging in Place
by Dustin Sklavos on September 30, 2010 3:00 AM ESTThe Daintier U35Jc
Maybe the headline isn't fair: the ASUS U35Jc is certainly smaller than the U30Jc, but "dainty" isn't necessarily the right word: maybe "sleek" is more appropriate. "Dainty" suggests flimsy build quality, but the brushed aluminum lid of the U35Jc is firm, attractive, and cool to the touch. The screen is LED backlit, keeping with the modern trend of ultraportables, and results in a fairly thin profile.
When you open the U35Jc, you're unfortunately greeted with the only major instance of glossy plastic, and naturally in the worst possible place: the screen bezel. It's enough of a mystery why manufacturers continue to use glossy plastics (though thankfully they're starting to become a little more scarce), but why would you use it on the one part of the notebook (outside of the keyboard and touchpad) most likely to see fingertips? It's a minor complaint but a relevant one: a glossy screen bezel is a smudge factory. The other instance of glossy plastic is at least someplace you're less likely to care, which is above the keyboard. There's a black accent on the top of the battery, between the screen hinges, and at least it matches pretty well and doesn't call attention to itself.
The inside surface of the U35Jc is, I'm sorry to say, not aluminum, but at least is an attractive silver that matches the lid well enough. Credit where credit is due, the pattern in the plastic is nice and subdued, giving it a textured look, and overall the inside of the U35Jc is nicely minimalistic. There are only two shortcut buttons outside of the keyboard: one on the upper left for switching power plans in ASUS' Power4Gear software, and a power button with a blue LED backlight on the upper right.
Chiclet keyboards are in fashion right now, so if you don't like them, the one in the U35Jc probably isn't going to change your mind. That said, it's a good one, with very minimal flex (a welcome change from some other ASUS units we've tested), and an intelligent layout. The keyboard's a comfortable one, and the keys are thankfully a textured matte plastic. That may seem bog standard, but after dealing with the bizarre aluminum island-style keys on the Gateway ID49C and pretty much any Toshiba consumer notebook, a sensible keyboard design is welcome. ASUS doesn't reinvent the wheel anywhere on this keyboard, either: the layout is what you would expect, and that's perfectly fine.
It's a shame the touchpad isn't very good, though. ASUS along with many other manufacturers has made it a habit of integrating the touchpad with the rest of the shell lately, presumably because it reduces costs, but it also reduces quality and makes the notebook look cheap. While I appreciate a textured touchpad (something I know is a matter of taste), an entirely different surface would have been better. The rocker-style touchpad button needs to go the way of the dinosaur, too. At least it's not a unified touchpad as has become fashionable for HP and others these days, though: shoddy knock-offs of the MacBook Pro touchpad can make mousing a nightmare.
Circling the U35Jc, we find that the port selection isn't a big winner either. I seem to remember ASUS making a concerted push for USB 3.0 on many of their laptops, so its stunning absence here is felt, especially when there isn't at least an eSATA/USB combo port to make up the difference. No ExpressCard, no eSATA, no USB 3.0, no FireWire. Hope you like transferring data over USB 2.0.
Access to the internals is extremely basic and actually somewhat unusual for an ASUS machine. There are two separate hatches on the bottom, one for accesing the hard disk and hard disk only, and one for accessing the two RAM slots and the two RAM slots only. Under part of the hard disk bay you can actually see the antenna connections for the wireless card. It's disappointing that upgradeability is so minimal; larger ASUS machines tend to be very forthcoming. One thing that does concern me is the lack of any ventilation to the hard disk, though. It's true that notebook drives don't generate that much heat, and SSDs even less, but at least a little bit of ventilation would've been welcome.
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Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I have to disagree with you. The layout on this notebook has been a standard for a long time now, and it's something I'm very comfortable with and know a few people who feel the same way. I'm a pretty good touch typist and have never had any of the problems you cite, though that's admittedly anecdotal.ran100 - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
Now, when nvidia has already announced DX 11.0 series mobile graphics card with optimus technology. It is pity that manufacturers are yet to update. I want a notebook with gtx 460m and optimus. The panel of good quality is certainly important.JarredWalton - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
This laptop design was finished and being built probably 3-4 months ago at least, so it's no surprise that they didn't go to 400M. Still, 310M was such a slow card that I really hope it disappears quickly....tno - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I mean this thing is less interesting as far as I'm concerned than a MacBook speed bump. I think sending this one back to Asus and demanding they try again when they have something interesting to review would have been warranted. These should have been released side by side as the U30optical and the U30lite.Jeffk464 - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
Nope, nope, nope, must wait for the sangdybridge based version with a 15" monitor. Or maybe a AMD zacate 13" version.zhill - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
First, your laptop reviews are the best around as far as I'm concerned, but I have one minor gripe: the choice of comparison machines in the performance/battery tests is somewhat confusing to me. For instance, why not include the protege r700 and the asus u33jc in the graphs as those a contenders for anyone interested in a 13" portable? I understand that you want to throw in an i5, i7um etc and one or two machines from different segements, but it gets old having to look back through old reviews to get the numbers for comparisons. Maybe a Bench addition (like CPU/SSD/GPU Bench) so we can pick our own comparisons to see the data? That would be great.On a positive note, your battery life/wH is a great metric for efficiency and levels the playing field when considering what a higher-capacity upgrade battery might do. Keep up the good work!
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I'd be interested in hearing your input as to what's "ideal" in terms of charts. I personally think around 8~10 systems is good, as otherwise it gets too cluttered. Dustin I think prefers closer to 6 systems. So, if anyone else has an opinion here let us know! We can obviously put a bunch of the other systems we've reviewed into the charts, but at some point we pass the useful stage and move into information overload.As for Mobile Bench, we've talked about it. I guess I just need to chat with Anand some more and see how soon we can make it happen. :-)
zhill - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
First, thanks for the quick response.As for the "ideal" chart presentation, I think that the number of systems you present is just about right--8 systems is perfectly reasonable. However, unless a particular unit performs way above or below its "weight-class" (in the sporting sense) or has some really new/interesting hardware (i.e. the first example of a new CPU/generation), I'm really only interested in similar products, not, for instance, the Studio 17 vs U30JC. However, if a model is particularly bad or really good (rare these days with very similar hardware configs) then some out-of-class comparisons are useful. It's not an easy thing to determine, which is why an interactive system would be perfect as an option. So for the u35jc a nice comparison set might be: r700, u30jc, u33jc, m11x, studio 14, macbook pro-13, and maybe throw in the vaio Z to see what 2X cost gets you. Obviously, these are my personal preferences and relate to how and why I read a review.
Again, great reviews overall. You guys are the only ones who cover the LCDs and keyboards well. I've read far too many other review with "keyboard was good" simply because it's full sized, but in practice the thing is full of mush and terrible. These reviews are particularly great for models that aren't readily available in stores to try out.
vol7ron - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
"...a disappointment when 7200 RPM drives have gotten so much cheaper. Power consumption differences between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM drives can be fairly negligible at this point, so there's really no excuse for going with the faster hardware."Should it be "no excuse for going with the [slower] hardware", or "...for [not] going with the faster hardware"?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
Fixed.