Asus X51RL

Received free using via a website, so this obviously the best point for me and definitely recommend this route. I'm now in the process of obtaining my free HD LCD TV! Happy with the laptop with set up and functionality and the graphics are superb. Had the machine for 5 weeks and none to report so far, brilliant in every way and I was surprised at how good the quality of the Asus laptop is! Well recommend this Asus laptop model - X51RL.

I like Asus X51RL, the great positive things to say about this laptop are endless... Screen, pad, ram, Specifications...! Infact there is nothing I can say bad about this laptop, well recommended.

Extremely positive relation price/quality, however this Asus laptop for me is hard to work outside a vista os environment. Still well recommend!

The Asus X51RL is a 15.4in notebook with an Intel Core2Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 120GB Hard Drive and comes with Windows Vista Premium. Mine cost £438, with free postage, from ebuyer.

So what's it like? Style wise, let's call it sober, which is fine by me, but for fashionistas and style gurus it's metallic grey and black finish may not suit. What no-one can argue with is the build quality. Before purchase I looked at almost everything in the £375 - £450 price range and none of them were as solid as this. The casing, the keyboard, the three hinges, the buttons €" all well made and all quality. The warranty is two years aswell, very rare in this price range. Everything came set up and it all worked straight out of the box. There were no glitches or issues and there isn't too much rubbish software included. I ditched the bundled security software and put on my own.

The specification is well up to the job of running Vista Premium. The processor is a proper Core2Duo €" many manufacturers advertise dual core but it turns out to be a Pentium Dual Core, which is not the same and not as good. And the 2GB of RAM improves the experience; I wouldn't personally advise running Vista Premium on 1GB.

The keyboard feels good and the touchpad works well, barring the scroll feature, which is a bit hit and miss.

Battery life is no more than average. I haven't done a timed test, but it does seem to discharge faster than I would expect, even using all the power saving options.

It could be an issue if you work away from a power source a lot.

The worst point is sound and graphics. The glossy screen looks OK provided the angle is set exactly right and you are viewing it centrally. Otherwise it's not the best. The graphics chip is ATI rather than the usual Intel. Colour rendition is not that accurate. I connected the PC to a stand alone monitor and compared colours on the 2 screens. The difference was quite marked. This may well be a problem if you do lots of photo editing. As for the sound, like so many notebooks, it's tinny and weak. On the default settings I could hardly hear it, and even with everything turned up it's only adequate.

As far as other stuff goes, there's a generous 4 USB ports, a card reader, although the only supported card type that I'd call common is SD, and an expansion slot, but this is the older Cardbus type rather than Expresscard.

If I sound a bit negative I don't mean to be. At this price there will always be a few compromises and I'm overall delighted with it. If you value solid build quality from a reputable maker, a specification that can run Vista Premium with ease, and a 2 year warranty then this is hard to beat at the price.