Asus X53E-SX1167V Laptop Review!

Versatile Performance 2^nd Gen Core i5 Laptop
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/x53e-sx1167v-asus-x53e-sx1167v-p-55007.html?sort=2a

Features

For the final review of the year, I have for you guys an Asus X53E laptop. This is you mid to low range laptop at an acceptable price range for those on a budget. Let’s take a look at what this has to offer

Model: X53E-SX1167V
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2430M (2.4GHz)
Memory: 4GB DDR3 (1333MHz) (Max 8GB)
Hard Drive(s): 750GB 5400RPM
Optical Drive(s): Super Multi DVD R/W
Networking: Gigabit Ethernet
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000
Display: 15.6” HD LED Backlight (1366x768 Resolution)
Audio: Altec Lansing Speakers
Coms: 802.11b/g/n
Inputs: 2x USB2.0, 1x USB3.0,  1x Microphone, SD/MMC Card Reader
Outputs: 1x Headphone Out, 1x VGA, 1x HDMI
Battery: 6 Cell

Pretty average specs.

Out of the box one can’t help but notice the white casing from the usual blacks and charcoals. If you want a laptop to standout this is definitely one to think about.

Design

Unpacking the box was less than ordinary. Standard Asus packaging. Unwrapping the unit reveals its white casing. The white casing is covered with small grey dots in shape of swirls and twirls which add quite a unique look to it. Opening the lid, the keyboard and surrounding plastic is all the same white material with the dots. The edge around the display however is your usual glossy black, which is a bit of a shame. I would’ve liked to have seen a more unified design with the white colour.

The keyboard itself is also a nice white colour and comes with a full sized keypad as well, which should be appealing to a lot of people. It is nice and comfortable to type on and features Asus’ Ice Cool palm rest areas.

On the left side of the unit you have the exhaust, a USB 3.0 port, VGA and HDMI output, Ethernet and the power plug. Right hand side features your audio jacks, 2x USB2.0 ports, the DVD drive and the Kensington lock. 

The notebook is your standard 15.6” Screen sized laptop, weighing in at 2.6Kgs. Once again the power adapter on the Asus laptop disappoints me again. It is positioned on the left hand side of the unit, and it has a 90 degree plug. Also, the cable sits in front of the exhaust, with all hot air coming out of the unit, blowing right onto the power cable. Not exactly the wisest thing to do. I’m sure not all users would be comfortable with their laptops power cable heating up constantly. Unless you plug your cable in on an awkward angle, this could potentially be hazardous in the future. 

Felt like deja-vu? That’s because you may have read the exact paragraph in my previous reviews. This is now the 3^rd Asus machine with the same problem. I think it’s safe to say it is a design flaw with a few of their models.

Performance

Featuring an Intel 2^nd Gen Core i5 processor and 4GB of memory, it serves up a good technical specification for most home users. The larger memory and increased storage space definitely work in the units favour.

Booting the unit came in at 50s, which is acceptable and expected from an i5. Although I must admit there are a lot of background processes going on, something which consistently bugs me about Asus. All the pre-installed applications and utilities that come with the unit are a complete waste of resources most of the time and would barely be useful to the majority of users. I would really like to see an Asus one day with not as many junk in their machines.

The display on the unit is as expected. Seems like the same display from other models. Watching HD movies and photos from a DSLR appeared sharp and clear. The good thing about this display is it is quite crisp so you don’t have blurry spots which is always great.

Sound on the X54L is relatively good. Although you’re not going to get boom box equivalent sound coming out of the speakers, it still manages to provide comfortable listening levels through the Altec Lansing speakers.

I installed Photoshop CS5 64bit to test out how simple editing will run. Installation took only 6 minutes which is a good result. Launching Photoshop was also very responsive, coming in around the 20sec mark. It took me just a few seconds to open up 5-10mb files which are promising as these are the average sizes most users will be working with; surprisingly, the 700mb file didn’t perform as badly as I expected. The file opened easily and I was able to work on it for lengthy time without slugging out too much.

Simple everyday software like Office, Excel, Outlook and browsing internet was normal without any hiccups. The 4GB memory gives a pleasant browsing experience managing to handle multiple open tabs with streaming video.

Our Cinebench software gave us the following test results:

CPU: 2.68pts
OpenGL: 8.16fps

The CPU performed well and achieved an acceptable result for an everyday computer. The OpenGL as expected struggled with the Intel HD3000 graphic processor. Obviously not built for the gamers.

Our PCMark07 benchmark gave a result of 2076 PCMarks. 

Our PCMark results sits snug in between an i3 machine and i7 machine which is comforting to know there’s nothing unordinary going on within the unit.

Temperatures were very good with the unit. Load times were fantastic with 28 and 37 degrees for the hard drive and CPU respectively. On load the unit handled the heat very well and kept the keyboard and palm rest areas cool. A surprising element was the loudness. The unit maintained a very low sound even when under load.

Conclusion

The unit is perfect for those looking for a nice and simple family laptop or something to do your house financing work on. It provides good performance at little cost, running nice, cool and quiet. However it’s missing something; something I can’t get my head around. There’s just something about it that doesn’t interest me. It feels like it’s a bit boring and would never excite me. This is a bit of a personal opinion though. Others may fall in love with the decorated white casing and elegant feel to it, because overall, it is a solid unit that performs well at a reasonable price.

By Sahin Selvi
sahin.s@centrecom.com.au

The benchmark results may differ from user to user depending on what background software you are running and versions of benchmark software. These results aren’t portrayed to be seen as exact performance figures but merely as a rough estimate on the performance of the machine. These results are in no way bias to any company or person and are here to provide the end user in depth details and to provide extra assistance of potential purchases. All information on this page is subject to copyright. Please do not copy any parts of this article.