ASUS announced their new notebook product in on May 13, 2010, including the U-Bamboo and NX/N/U series. ASUS experimented in the past with Bamboo covered laptops. But the bamboo was covering just the lid not the central component of the chassis. So with that concept they set to change with a series of new laptops that use much more bamboo that Asus claims the machines are entirely recyclable.
Asus states these new machines offer an 11 hour battery life and the latest ‘Super Hybrid Engine’ can also improve the CPU performance an additional 11 per cent via automated overclocking. All the machines get the same Core i5-450M CPU with Nvidia GeForce 310M 1GB graphics and Optimus Technology, USB 3 ports and a 500GB hard drive. What’s disappointing is the paultry 2GB of DDR3 offered: this is likely in response to increasing memory prices to keep the cost down.
The U33 uses an 8-cell battery while still manages to keep the weight at just 1.8kg, however the U43 and U53 ship with (physically larger) 6-cells but are 2.1kg a much meatier 2.76kg respectively.
At £900-£950 (based on a rough conversion from Taiwan NTD) they aren’t that expensive, but it’s still an investment and you’ve got to weigh up whether the unique bamboo style is worth the cost over the £825-875 U35/U45 range.
Source: bit-tech.net, digitimes.com
