A hot piece of business hardware on your lap

 

 

This laptop from Asus goes head to head with the Latitude series from Dell and ThinPad from Lenovo, competing for the business segment of the laptop market. The 12.5 inch screen is surrounded by broad bezels that make it seem smaller than it should. The full HD antiglare display is harp and bright but with colour reproduction that’s slightly on the duller side. The mouse can be controlled by a touchpad (and physic left or right click buttons) or the classic point stick. The keyboard is backlit with well-spaced keys and a lot of key travel which can get annoying on long typing sessions. 

You get Windows 8.1 pre-loaded and upgrading to windows 10 will be an option. The hybrid drive (8 GB SSD + 512 GB HDD) make sure that the system is quick to boot and a fingerprint scanner makes logging in quicker. The laptop packs a fourth generation i5 processor and 4 GB of RAM which is decent for daily uage but disappointing if you consider the price of this machine. On the bright side, despite adding just 1.27 kilograms to your bag’s weight, it accommodates most ports that a laptop can offer — earphone-mic combo jack, LAN port, VGA Port, SD card slot and three USB ports. 

When you’re done with work, the MaxxAudio speakers and HD screen make a great team for playing movies and music. The one big flaw that this laptop suffers from, is the exhaust that sits directly on your lap. The bottom of the laptop, that touches your thigh,  has a tendency to heat up and unless you have a table nearby, you’ll find yourself holding the laptop away from your lap just to finish that last video you have to watch before shutting it down.