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ASUS W5A

73

Good

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Pros
Includes a built-in camera
Cons
Sound is poor

Performance: Fair: 61
Features: Good: 78
Design: Good: 75

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
ACD Systems ACDSee	870
Adobe Photoshop	394
Adobe Premiere	612
Ahead Nero	1453
Battery Life (Office Applications)	2:55
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	466
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	502
Microsoft Office XP	568
Mozilla	430
Musicmatch Jukebox	608
Number of Included Batteries	1
Roxio VideoWave	463
Windows Media Encoder	482
WinZip	517
World Bench 5 Score	76
World Bench 5 Word Score	Good

WorldBench Tests
Multitasking	796

Performance
WorldBench 5: Performance word scores reflect comparisons of notebooks in the same category running the same operating system. See Guide to the Top-Rated Products for more details.	Good: 76 (Windows XP Professional)
CPU	1.73-GHz Pentium M 740
Screen size	12.1 inches
System memory	512MB of DDR2-400 SDRAM
Hard drive	40GB
Graphics	Integrated Intel 915GM using main memory
Pointing device	Touchpad
Bays	None
Bundled removable-media drives	Fixed DVD-ROM and CD-RW combo drive
Floppy drive	None
Ports	Three USB 2.0, FireWire, microphone, headphone, S-Video, PC Card slot
Communications	V.92 modem, Bluetooth, 802.11g
Business suite	N/A
Other features	Five-in-one media card reader, built-in camera
Overall design	Good
Battery life (hours:minutes)	Good: 2:55
Weight (typical/minimum, in pounds): Typical weight includes the computer, AC adapter, optical drive, and floppy drive (if offered).	Light: 5.0/4.1
Vendor's reliability/service	Insufficient data
Support policy	One-year parts and labor warranty; free unlimited 8-hour weekday toll-free support

What You Should Know about the W5A

Not Much RAM for Multitasking

The more RAM your laptop has, the faster programs will run and the greater number of windows you can work in at one time. If your needs are simple and you rarely do more than two things at once on your PC, the relatively modest amount of memory that comes installed in inexpensive laptops will be enough. Today the standard amount of RAM shipped in most PCs is 2GB. If you like to multitask--say, you want to launch a search for a file and start backing up data to a disc while you watch a news video--you need more memory.