Asus UL50Ag A2

Asus UL50Ag A2
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First, some background:

I've been a Mac user for 10 years or so as my primary machine. I use a MacBook Pro and OS X as my work machine and needed a secondary laptop for personal use.

I couldn't justify dropping $2,000 for another MacBook Pro so close to Christmastime, but I could justify $600 to $700 for this unit. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and love it.

The Good:

While it does not have the claimed 12 hour battery life, you can easily get 7-10 hours out of it depending on how you configure brightness etc. More than enough to make it a joy to use.

The screen is 15.6 (call it 16" widescreen) and is bright and crisp with plenty of room to work in.

Chicklet keys are really nice touch. In general the unit is really solid and fast.

The one year warranty ASUS has is unusual in that it covers spills and drops. Other manufacturers have this available but you have to pay for it. Comes standard with ASUS.

The Bad:

As other reviewers before have said, there is a very slight flex in the keyboard, but to me it is not noticable, nor do I really care because it doesn't affect my typing.

The exterior black is a neat finish but again, as other reviewers have stated, it is a fingerprint magnet. Not too much of a concern for me though because the machine is a joy to use. Really. It is. If you buy this you will not be disappointed.

The Ugly:

I've tried really hard the past two weeks to find something wrong with the machine and really the only thing that is bad about it is that it runs Windows 7 rather than OS X. Windows 7 is not a bad OS and on this machine it is quite fast, particularly if you don't load up a new laptop with software right when you get it, but rather install one program a day to see if any give you problems.

Final recommendations:

Strongly recommend two things with the purchase of this unit. One is the Microsoft ARC Wireless Mouse. Very cool.

The other is a Backblaze account for set it and forget it, backup. [...]. Get the $50 per year account rather than the $5/month and for less than five bucks a month you will have offsite backup and peace of mind.

In terms of how this unit compares to the MacBook Pro?

The MBP is undoubtedly a more solid machine - and the solid aluminum carved block is a joy to use. But if you don't have the money for it and if you need a solid, reliable unit that is fairly similar, this ASUS is a really solid choice; and at $600 to $700, you're not going to find anything comparable to it in the PC line. Trust me, I know. Before buying this unit at Best Buy, I looked at ThinkPads, ACERs, HP, Toshiba, Sony and DELL.

I'm sold on ASUS.

Hope this helps!