GREAT MARKET BARGAIN THE ASUS X53SR - REVIEW

If you don't have a big budget to spend but want a notebook that's big enough to work on and loaded enough for most modern applications, then the Asus X53SR should fit the bill. Its performance is cool, especially going by its starting low price tag of just £549.

Design

The X53SR is quite on the large and bulky side of the present day notebooks and as it weights nearly 3kg, it's not the best notebook for use on the move. Even after being loaded with an HD optical drive, it's a letdown that the screen resolution only stretches to 1,280x800 pixels, which is par below the number of pixels, needed to enjoy 1080p HD material. The Design of this notebook is rather average and it's fairly boxy with sharper up edges. It's not exactly ugly, but it won't have you bossing at it either. The touch pad buttons are also not the classier ones to use as there's only one single button so you would have to press it at either end for your click to be recognized.

Performance

The X53SR may be a low-budget notebook, but it's certainly not an underpowered by any means. It is loaded with the 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 processor and 2GB of RAM resulted in a PCMark05 score pushing 4,000. At 3,948, it's more powerful than most of the machines costing twice as much as this package. It can even hold its hand to gaming side of notebooks, and it even manages to achieve a 3DMark06 result of 1,380 from its embedded ATI Mobility Radeon HD X2400 graphics chip set.

If you're the one crazy after entertainment when you've finished your work, then gaming is not the only aspect that the X53SR has covered, with an in built optical drive that is capable to read HD discs as well as read and write CDs and DVDs. Unfortunately, this is an HD DVD drive, which has been abandoned since Toshiba withdrew its support for the HD DVD format. Still, you would be able to pick up some cheap titles on eBay as the early takers of this version look to offload their films in favor of Blu-ray.

With the display In addition to VGA, there's also an option of DVI port, so hooking it up to an HD TV using a HDMI adapter is never a problem. If decide to stick to the built-in display, you won't be disappointed either as it's a high-contrast glossy model that produces great colors. Will keep you entertained.

The 3 USB ports provided are sensibly located, with 2 at the rear and 1 at the frontal sector. If you're crazy for faster data transfers, there's also an option of eSATA ports for jacking up your external hard drives which provides a bit over twice the speed of USB 2.0.
It failed to fare well in the Battery tests, this notebook only just holding to last over an hour running the intensive test.

Overall

The ASUS X53SR is powerful for its price and would make a good workaholic performer and entertainment console, provided you bear up with its less than impressive looks. It's not really suitable for living on the streets kind, but provided you keep it indoors and intact near a power supply, it should prove to be a decent model. But that not what a Laptop is supposed to be.

Pros

+ Great Bargain
+ Good entertainment option
+ Practical and promising speeds while handling applications.


Cons

- Poor Battery
- HD DVD not a practical option
- No Blu-Ray

Value For Money

Our Rating

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