The ASUS UL30 – A True All-Day Ultraportable

We’ve now seen several CULV systems that live up to the promise of more power than netbooks and less price than traditional ultraportables, no notebook has yet combined thinness, portability, power, super longevity, and low price into one machine. Then we got our hands on the ASUS UL30.

Less than an inch thick, 4 pounds, sleek, slim and fairly powerful. We’re not talking gaming rig powerful — nor would you be when a CULV processor is on the table – but we are talking multi-tab, multi-task, more than 3 programs open simultaneously powerful. Consumers won’t be using the UL30 for a multimedia hub (even with the HD display and HDMI output), but that’s not what it’s built for. Consumers will have the ability to use it all day, given the nearly 10 hours of battery life.

Running the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi), the UL30 lasted 9 hours and 55 minutes — longer than every ultraportable we’ve tested recently and every netbook we’ve seen. Only the Toshiba NB205 comes close, but it lags behind by half an hour.

The graphics didn’t perform that well and video isn’t as sharp as we’d like. However, the UL30 can play full-screen Hulu clips without the choppyness others have noted in HD netbooks and other ULV notebooks like the Acer Aspire 1410.

Click here to read our full review and see this svelte, elegant notebook for yourself.