Notebook Hunter

For only $677 at the Good Guys the 13.3in ASUS U31SD-RX049V is great value for money considering how light and powerful it is. At only 1.78kg it’s easy to carry around, an impressive feat for an ultraportable packing both a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5 and a good low-end dedicated graphics card. Some programs like image editors benefit from a dedicated graphics card, so if you need to use that kind of software on the move the U31SD is an affordably-priced solution. One thing to note is that it doesn’t have an optical drive. This compromise is necessary to bring the weight down, but if you need to play DVDs an external USB DVD burner may be worth considering.

Processor
The U31SD features a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz), a mid-range processor that can run productivity applications and most intensive software. It can burst up to 2.9GHz using Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology if a particularly demanding program is running.

Graphics
It comes with a dedicated graphics card called the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M. It’s a low-end card that is enough for modern games at low settings.

RAM
4GB of RAM is enough to run several programs at once smoothly. It will ensure fluid overall system performance with Windows 7 Home Premium.

Storage
A 500GB hard disk drive is about average in size. It’s big enough for plenty of documents, but movies and the like will fill it sooner rather than later.

Screen
The U31SD sports a 13.3in (1,366x768 resolution) gloss screen. The gloss screen does make outdoor usage a bit of a struggle, but stay out of direct sunlight and it’s still fine.

Portability
The portability is great, because it weighs 1.78kg and is 28.5mm thick. It can be carried around very easily.

See the ASUS U31SD-RX049V in the Notebook Hunter database here.

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