Not because introduction of your unibody MacBook Pro have we been this anxious about a notebook’s design. Sure, we’ve seen our fair share of cool patterns, textures, and lights during the past several years, nevertheless the ASUS U33Jc is special. Both lid and palm rest are made with bamboo (yes, the wood), which but not only gives this 13-inch notebook a stylish aesthetic, but can make it more eco-friendly than your typical plastic box. And also the U33Jc is a bit more than a style.

Design
Upon first checking U33Jc, it’s not possible to help but be impressed featuring a premium craftsmanship and organic vibe. We love the fine grain of your smoky brown bamboo in the the lid along with the palm rest, that is certainly complemented using a more high-tech brushed aluminum deck across the keyboard. Even the touchpad and single mouse button receive the bamboo treatment. Why bamboo? Not only is it one of several strongest plants in the world, it is equally very plentiful. ASUS also says that by using bamboo it reduced the number of plastic components by 15 percent.It makes sense a one-of-a-kind design that oozes eco-cool and also resists fingerprints, even though it feels somewhat plasticy. The chrome accents across the edges of your system plus in between the touchpad and touch button complement the bamboo well.the U33Jc is lighter than its predecessor, the 4.8-pound U30Jc, and it is fairly portable since the notebook features both a full-power Core i3 processor and discrete Nvidia graphics. A similarly equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro weighs 4.5 pounds. Still, other 13-inch machines weigh considerably less, including the 3.2-pound Toshiba Portege R700. The notebook measures 12.9 x 9.3 x 1 inches, an attractive compact footprint and svelte profile given the specs.

Keyboard, Touchpad and Screen
Hiclet-style layout within the U33Jc, which exhibited little flex. However, ASUS didn’t utilize all possible space within the deck, which results using some undersized keys (like the right Shift key). Overall, tactile feedback was adequate; the keys felt somewhat mushy, but we had arrived competent to type quickly. We only wish ASUS offered a backlit keyboard.Measuring 3 x 1.7 inches, the U33Jc’s bamboo touchpad was remarkably smooth, which makes it easy to navigate the desktop. Oddly, ASUS chose not to ever enable multitouch gestures, so pinch to zoom is actually a no-go. The narrow touch button works fine when you are just clicking a product or service, but keeping it held down for scrolling proved a challenge.

General Performance, Graphics and Battery Life
The U33Jc is like the U30Jc, instead of your 2.26GHz Intel Core i3-350M, it possesses a great faster 2.4GHz Core i3-370M CPU. The benchmarks clearly show the development, in our everyday use we couldn’t really tell between the U33Jc and a few of your other Core i3-powered laptops we’ve reviewed over the last month or so. The notebook definitely kept up with his day-to-day routine, including simultaneously running Firefox with over 10 tabs open, Microsoft ‘office’, Skype, Trillian, Adobe Reader and TweetDeck. Our review unit came configured with 4GB of RAM along with a 500GB hard drive. Those that may like to swap out of the RAM or hard drive shouldn’t come with an issue completing this task while using the latch on the bottom of your chassis.The Core i3 processor and integrated graphics is okay for basic HD playback, nevertheless the U33Jc’s NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU with 1GB of VRAM provides each system some real graphics muscle.The U33Jc’s 84Wh eight-cell battery lasted for 5 hours and 10 mins with brightness set to 65 percent. That’s an hour longer than the U30Jc and Toshiba’s Portege R705, but not quite provided ASUS’ predicted eight hours. While using GPU on it ran a loop of HD videos for 3.5 hours. Still, both of those numbers are on the extreme end — when we used notebook to write this review, hear music and intermittently watch some YouTube clips, we didn’t have to connect for around six hours.

Wireless Display Technology Performance
NVIDIA said it was possible, along with the U33Jc is actually a testament that a laptop using a discrete GPU is usually coupled with Intel’s WiDi or Wireless Display Technology. However, the GPU must be deterred for the wireless display feature to work, so there is no NVIDIA graphics power when streaming video with the U33Jc to 40-inch HDTV. Also, remember that you’ve got to have a $99 Netgear Push2TV box to get the whole WiDi thing going. Whilst you still can’t stream full 1080p video, the technology is pretty awesome, and that we enjoyed watching a chapter of Mad Men within the giant screen as opposed to within the 13.3-inch screen. There’s still with regards to a three second delay, so it’s not about to cut it for gaming or real productivity.

Software
ASUS bundles a broad assortment of software while using the U33Jc, included a few of its programs. By pressing the button above the left side of your keyboard, you can actually toggle through various power settings using ASUS’s Power4Gear software. This same button fires up Express Gate (instant-on software) once the notebook is powered off, which is useful when you wish to have online in a big hurry.Other notable utilities include ASUS ControlDeck, gives you fast access a number of controls having a 3D interface (brightness, volume, resolution, etc.); Fast Boot, which delays certain programs and services upon startup to speed the boot time; SmartLogon facial recognition; along with the LifeFrame webcam software. Third-party programs include Skype, Syncables Desktop, Time Reader, and Kindle for PC.

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