• 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Glare Type LCD w/ 1.3MP Webcam
• 2.00GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (T7200, Merom) Processor w/4MB L2 Cache
• ATI Mobility Radeon X1700 w/ 256MB VRAM; up to 512MB Hyper Mem.
• 120GB 5,400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 2Gb DDR2-667 SDRAM Memory.
8xDVDRW Super Multi DL Burner Light Scribe
My initial impression of the notebook was a “wow”. The more I used it the more the ASUS V1JP continued to impress me, especially the screen. The design and accents on this laptop are very nice, a masterpiece even.
Screen
The screen on the ASUS V1JP is a high resolution glossy screen. The native resolution is 1680x1050 (WSXGA+) which was one of the features I wanted in a notebook. After spending a day with the laptop I found one bright dot located in the bottom left corner. It is not annoying and mostly unnoticeable, but since ASUS provides Zero Bright Dot warranty I may take advantage of it. The screen is made by Chi Mei, CMO1523 (N154Z1-L02). This may the same screen as the ASUS G1.
The screen can scale pretty nicely, it is not perfect, but close. I changed the native resolution of the desktop to 1280x768 and the icons and text seems just a little bit off, it could just be my eyes being used to high resolutions.
Max Brightness---------------------------------------Low Brightness
The screen is very bright, and I do feel comfortable using it at the maximum brightness. There are 16 levels of brightness, and the lowest brightness does not turn off the screen. In order to conserve the battery I also feel comfortable at the 6th level of brightness. To further increase battery life, the last 3 lowest brightness levels are still usable, which is good in my opinion, since I want to maximize battery life.
The viewing angles of the screen are very good. This screen resembles the one used in the ASUS G1 laptop from comments I have read. The horizontal viewing angle is roughly 145 degrees on both sides!
The vertical viewing angle is roughly 110 degrees which allows for a reasonable amount of head room up and down.
The backlight is very good in my opinion; there is no light leakage evident which I am very happy about. The screen seems to not have any reflections when there is low light, however when there is a lot of lighting there is a noticeable amount of glare.
Keyboard
The keyboard is a black colour with grey letters on the keys. The sound of the keys is a soft click. The keyboard exhibits no flex when typing, if you press hard on the top right corner there is a small amount of flex there, but nothing to be concerned about. It would have been nice if the letters glowed in the dark or if the keyboard had a backlight.
The keyboard is easy to use; the keys are placed in reachable positions for your fingers to press. One thing that does bother me is the FN and CTRL key, the FN key is placed left of the CTRL key and this is rather annoying since I use the CTRL key often for shortcuts. However, I will adjust to this in time.
Touchpad
The touchpad has a textured feel to it and the colour is also a dark grey. There is a silver accent around the touchpad as well, which enhances the look of the laptop. The touchpad feels great while swiftly moving across the touchpad. The touchpad also has a scroll section which is indicated in silver to the right of the touchpad. There is also a hidden horizontal scroll, which allows you to scroll side to side.
The touchpad buttons are also a dark grey colour and they are relatively easy to press. The sound of the buttons is more of a soft click sound which I do not find to be intrusive when in a quiet room. There is a fingerprint reader that is placed in between the touchpad buttons, which I will discuss more about later on in the review.
Features
The ASUS V1JP has many features in which one can appreciate; these are what I factored into when purchasing the ASUS V1JP, when compared to other laptops.
Bluetooth
The Bluetooth manager is very easy to use, it takes roughly 3 minutes to set up a profile for a Bluetooth device. Unfortunately, despite setup being easy for my Motorola RAZR V3i, the connection could not establish, and an error pops up. Oh well, I will further investigate on how to connect my phone with my laptop.
Webcam
The ASUS V1JP is equipped with a 1.3 mega pixel camera, located above the screen and does not swivel. The quality of the camera is decent, certainly better than other laptops I have seen.
