ASUS F6Ve

The Asus F6Ve has a dated design compared to more recent notebooks that we have seen come out of the ASUS lineup. ASUS F6VE-B1 is a 13.3″ desktop replacement notebook. Not content with making just another small form factor notebook, ASUS crammed in an Intel T9550 Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon Mobility 4570 graphics card into this 13.3″ chassis. For a notebook that costs almost $1,300 these days we expect a notebook with more attention to detail and innovative designs. The F6Ve has a glossy painted lid with a Spirograph-type pattern that is barely seen unless you are sitting right on top of it. The inside has a cheap feeling textured plastic palmrest, matte finish keys with a hint of sparkle, and chrome or glossy black plastic trim.

ASUS included a wired USB optical mouse and carrying case with the purchase of F6Ve-B1. As far as freebies go they are pretty nice if you don’t already have comparable items. The carrying case provides adequate protection for the notebook, which is vital if you are carrying it around a college campus where you run the risk of dropping it.

System performance is what the ASUS F6Ve was designed for, with its Intel 2.66GHz T9550 processor and 512MB ATI Radeon Mobility 4570. This 13.3″ notebook is fast enough completely replace a desktop if you aren’t looking for something that has to run the latest games at the highest settings. It is very fast for things like decoding HD video, running many applications at the same time, or ripping and compressing music or video for a media player. Newer games work fine with some visual settings tweaked, pushing the limits of the ATI 4570 graphics card. The previous top performing 13.3″ notebook of choice was the LG P300, but it had to make compromises such as removing the optical bay to handle the additional hardware; ASUS managed to pull it off without removing any hardware.