Asus U2E Review

by Jerry Jackson

The market for notebooks with screens that are 12-inches or smaller is more popular than ever before. As increasing numbers of business professionals and average consumers are looking for thin and light notebooks to satisfy their mobile computing needs Asus has come to the table with one of the most elegant designs we've seen. The Asus U2E incorporates an 11-inch display with LED backlighting, ultra low voltage Core 2 Duo processor, thin built-in optical drive, a light-weight chassis with hand-polished stainless steel frame ... and let's not forget about the black premium leather.

Is the U2E a true masterpiece or a sub-par laptop in pretty clothes? Let's take a closer look.

Our review unit of the Asus U2E has the following specifications:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor ULV U7500 1.06 GHz (2MB L2 Cache 533MHz FSB)
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Business
• Chipset: Intel GM965
• Memory: 3GB DDR2 667 MHz (1GB+2GB) Expandable to 4GB
• Display: 11.1" WXGA (1366 x 768) LED Backlight
• Graphics: Intel GMA X3100 Integrated graphics
• Hard Drive: 120GB 1.8" IDE HDD 4200 rpm (optional 32GB SSD + 160GB External HDD)
• Optical Drive: Super Multi DVDRW
• 8-in-1 Card Reader, 3 USB, VGA out, micro-DVI (HDMI), and LAN
• Batteries:
  • 9-Cell (rated for 6+ hours)
  • 3-Cell (rated for 2 hours)
• Dimensions:10.9" x 7.6" x 0.98"-1.1"
• Weight:
  • 2 lbs 13.5 oz with 3-cell battery
  • 3 lbs 8 oz with 9-cell battery
• Security TPM / Finger Print Reader / Smart Logon
• Supplied Accessories: Bluetooth mouse and Carrying Bag
• Asus 360 Service and Accidental Damage Protection (2-year for notebook, 1-year for battery)
• MSRP: $1,999 as configured ($2,699 with 32GB SSD and 160GB external HDD)

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Build and Design

With a small footprint less than 11 inches wide and a starting weight of less than 3 pounds, the U2E makes a serious impression the first time you pull it out of a bag. Sure, the 11.1" display, and metal accents are cool, but it's the black genuine leather that gets the real attention.

Asus is one of the few laptop manufacturers to incorporate genuine leather on their notebooks, and while some consumers might not be crazy about this design choice it is done exceptionally well with the U2E. Asus claims that each piece of leather used for the U2E is hand picked and subjected to the most stringent examination to guarantee quality before being applied to each notebook. In other words, the leather looks flawless.

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While Asus deserves some serious credit for the application of leather, the feel of the leather is a bit unusual. When you first remove the notebook from the box or from your laptop bag the leather feels almost plastic to the touch. This is of course due to the adhesives used and the coatings that must be applied to the leather in order to prevent excessive scratches or oil build up from contact with your skin.

Luckily, after the U2E warms up (10-20 minutes after the processor does some work and the hard drive is spinning) the leather becomes warm and softens just enough to make the palmrests one of the most enjoyable we've used.

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As is often the case with premium small form factor notebooks, the U2E makes generous use of metal around the chassis for added durability and style. The stainless steels framework around the notebook features etch detailing (brushed metal) and polished metal around the display hinge. The overall look screams luxury business notebook.

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Packaging and Accessories

We don't typically talk about the box that a notebook comes in or the accessories that come with it. However, Asus did such a noteworthy job with the packaging for the U2E that I felt it deserved a mention.

The attractive black box has an innovative design with hidden compartments for the notebook, notebook slipcase, batteries, accessories, and software. Asus put a lot into a small package ... sort of like what they did with the U2E.

One of the nicer accessories that comes with the purchase of the U2E is a wireless Bluetooth mouse. The mouse is actually a rebranded Logitech mouse, so the quality is reasonably good. That said, this is a "freebie mouse" so don't expect perfect Bluetooth mouse performance.

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Another nice addition is a suede slipcase with genuine leather accents that was designed just for the U2E. This is the type of slipcase you would easily pay $40 or $50 for if you purchased it by itself. The U2E slides in easily and the suede prevents excessive scratching of the leather while the notebook is inside your laptop bag. All in all, a very nice extra.

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Screen

The 11.1" display on the U2E features a WXGA resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and utilizes backlit LED technology. The benefit of LED over the conventional CCFL used on most notebooks is that LEDs consume less power and in turn increase battery life. LED backlighting also generates more luminance (brightness) with 20%-50% less thickness and weight.

In general use, the screen on the U2E is gorgeous and downright flawless. Direct viewing and horizontal viewing angles are among the best we've seen on any notebook of any size. Vertical viewing angles were only average with the lower viewing angle being extremely difficult to view. However, this isn't a problem unless your notebook is sitting on a tall desk and you're viewing the screen from the floor.

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Keyboard, Touchpad and Fingerprint Reader

The keyboard on the U2E is quite remarkable compared to other keyboards in this class. The keyboard suffers from virtually no flex, even above the optical drive, which is a major improvement over similarly sized notebooks from other manufacturers. The keys have excellent travel with quiet presses and each key is coated in a semi-gloss paint that includes a slight metal flake that's only visible under close examination.

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The touchpad was a bit of a mixed bag. The touchpad buttons have nice, deep feedback with well-cushioned clicks. While the touchpad surface is reasonably large and feels nice thanks to its brushed metal surface, the brushed metal probably wasn't the best choice for a touchpad surface. Every time I ran my finger up or down the touchpad my fingertip would rub against one of the horizontal brush marks and I would stop ... thinking that I had reached the edge of the touchpad. This became very frustrating after several days because if I didn't look at the touchpad I would often think the touchpad was smaller than it actually was.

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Like most ultraportable notebooks designed for business, the U2E utilizes a fingerprint reader for biometric security. Rather than needing to type in your various security passwords each time Windows or an application requires it you simply swipe your fingertip over the reader and the built-in scanner takes an image of your fingerprint to validate your identity.

The fingerprint reader on the U2E works fine. Of course, if you don't like using your fingertip as your password you don't have to use the included software to secure your laptop. Although biometrics is a wonderful method for securing data, I for one still prefer old-fashioned typed passwords.

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Input and Output Ports

There is a reasonable selection of ports on the U2E including an HDMI out port for connecting the notebook to your HDTV or external display. However, Asus makes a point of identifying the HDMI port as a "micro-DVI" so don't expect high-quality HDTV signal via this port.

Like most ultraportable notebooks, the U2E sacrifices a few ports in order to achieve the smaller size. In this case, Asus didn't include IEEE 1394 Firewire ... but that's not a deal killer since the U2E wasn't designed to handle your digital video processing needs. The complete list of ports includes:

• ExpressCard/34 slot
• Three USB 2.0
• HDMI out (micro-DVI)
• 8-in-1 digital media card reader
• microphone in
• RJ-11 (modem)
• RJ-45 (LAN/Ethernet)
• VGA out

Let's take a quick tour around the port offerings of the U2E:

Left side: Power jack, VGA, two USB 2.0, HDMI, ExpressCard/34, headphone out and microphone in.

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Right side: Optical drive, one USB 2.0, Ethernet, modem.

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Front side: 8-in-1 memory card reader.

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Rear side: Battery and security lock slot.

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Performance and Gaming

The power of this three-pound notebook was standard for similar laptops using Intel ultra-low voltage processors and integrated graphics. The 1.06GHz Core 2 Duo U7500 processor and Intel X3100 graphics mean this notebook doesn't need much battery power to do its job ... but don't expect to play modern 3D games on this laptop. Add to that a slower 1.8" hard drive that spins at only 4200rpm and you begin to understand that the U2E was designed for road warriors rather than consumers looking for a desktop replacement.

Intel's ultra low voltage Merom processor family - namely the U7600 clocked at 1.2GHz and U7500 at 1.06GHz - are designed to provide lower power consumption and cooler operation than other Core 2 Duo processors. These dual core ULV processors provide thermal design power (TDP) of 10 watts, while the other Core 2 Duo Meroms found in most notebooks have TDP of 17W and 34W. In short, ULV CPUs are slower but don't consume much of your battery.

Listed below are benchmarks that give you a better idea of how well the U2E compares against others in its category:

wPrime comparison results (lower score means better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Asus U2E (Intel Core 2 Duo U7500 @ 1.06GHz)	86 seconds
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 (Intel Core 2 Duo L7100 @ 1.20GHz)	98 seconds
Apple MacBook Air (Intel Core 2 Duo P7500 @ 1.6GHz)	68 seconds
Asus Eee PC 701 4G (Intel Celeron M ULV @ 900MHz)	200 seconds
Sony VAIO TZ (Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76 seconds

PCMark05 is a benchmark that measures the overall system performance, so it considers the processor, hard drive, memory and OS as part of the mix.

PCMark05 benchmark results (higher scores are better)

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Asus U2E (1.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7500, Intel X3100)	2,145 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100, Intel X3100)	3,467 PCMarks
Apple MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7500, Intel X3100)	2,478 PCMarks
Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100)	3,283 PCMarks
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	4,153 PCMarks
Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	3,987 PCMarks
Lenovo T60 Widescreen (2.0GHz Intel T7200, ATI X1400 128MB)	4,189 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	3,487 PCMarks
Sony VAIO SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks

3DMark06 graphics comparison results (higher score means better performance):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Asus U2E (1.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7500, Intel X3100)	407 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo L7100, Intel X3100)	475 3DMarks
Apple MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7500, Intel X3100)	502 3DMarks
Sony VAIO NR (1.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, Intel X3100)	504 3DMarks
Toshiba Tecra M9 (2.20GHz Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 130M 128MB)	1,115 3DMarks
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
HP dv2500t (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	1,055 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	827 3DMarks

HDTune measures the storage performance of a PC, the numbers for the U2E are typical for ultraportable notebooks using a slower 1.8" hard drive:

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Audio

The built-in speaker performance on the U2E was on par for notebooks in this class ... not good. The audio is fine for watching short video clips or web conferencing, but don't expect to enjoy music or full-length movies using the built-in speaker. The sound is similar to what you get be putting a small cell phone on the built-in "speaker phone" setting and then dropping the phone into a tin can.

On the bright side, the audio output via the headphone jack is quite good and provides excellent, distortion-free sound for headphones or external speakers.

Heat and Noise

Thanks to the ultra low voltage Core 2 Duo processor the U2E runs extremely cool even when the system is under significant stress. We ran multiple performance benchmarks on the U2E and after several cycles of PCMark05, 3DMark06, and HDTune the external temperature of the U2E never exceeded 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Impressive.

Below are images with the temperature readings listed in degrees Fahrenheit:

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While the notebook stays quite cool, it isn't particularly quiet. The small cooling fan inside the U2E runs most of the time when the laptop is plugged in and the fan in our review unit made a consistent light grinding noise that was probably due to a bad bearing in the fan or a plastic fan blade rubbing against the chassis. In fact, when we picked up the U2E while the fan was running the grinding noise would change pitch ... almost sounding like a wood chipper working in the distance.

Battery

Asus includes two batteries as standard accessories with the U2E ... something we wish more companies would do. The standard 3-cell battery fits flush to the back of the notebook and the 9-cell extended life battery sticks out the back of the notebook (as pictured above).

Asus claims the 9-cell battery can provide more than 6 hours of power and the 3-cell can provide 2 hours. Much to our surprise, these claims proved to be pretty accurate. With the U2E set to "Battery Saving" mode with LED backlight at 50 percent brightness and WiFi on, the extended life battery was drained after 6 hours and 26 minutes. The standard 3-cell battery lasted for only 1 hour and 38 minutes.

Overall, the minor increase in size and weight is a small price to pay for the exceptional battery life provided by the 9-cell battery. I would only recommend the 3-cell for people who insist on having the smallest, lightest notebook possible.

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Conclusion

The Asus U2E is one of the most impressive luxury business notebooks we've ever seen. Granted, the $2,000 price tag is more than most consumers are likely to consider ... but this isn't an ordinary laptop. Asus managed to create one of the smallest and lightest notebooks with a built-in optical drive and a build quality that is second to none.

Add in the fact that the U2E still includes a reasonable number of ports and enough processing power to meet your mobile needs, and the U2E makes perfect sense for anyone considering a luxury ultraportable notebook. The black premium leather, metal accents, and a solid selection of included accessories give the U2E just enough of an edge to make the competition want to pay close attention.

If you're in the market for a stylish, ultraportable laptop that makes a serious statement then the U2E might just be your perfect match.

Pros

• Low-voltage Core 2 Duo processor is easy on battery life
• One of the most attractive 11-inch notebooks we've seen
• Excellent build quality
• Great keyboard
• Comes with two batteries
• Nice packaging and extras

Cons

• Low-voltage processor doesn't give desktop replacement performance
• Touchpad surface isn't great
• Noisy fan
• Leather is either stylish or garish depending on your tastes

 

Okay... Why is this in the Sony section ? :\

 

We had some weirdness with the forum ... we moved it where it needs to be now.

 

What are you talking about? It seems to be in the correct section to me (Notebook news and reviews). Perhaps it was accidentally placed there when you posted....
EDIT: It seems like JerryJ has already acknowledged and fixed the issue before I could even post. Never mind.

Anyway, I'll read the rest of the review and post my thoughts here later today, as I am currently in class right now.

Either way, this notebook does look interesting, though the durability of the leather finish seems questionable.

 

I see.. well, thanks for the review!

That's right.

 

geeee I just bought U1E for $2500, third world country pricing is suck

Anyway seems same chasis with U1E.
Internal optical drive is good improvement, and also they have fixed the tiny touchpad on U1.

from the picture looks bit ticker from U1. and leather is just not my style

very nice notebook

 

Nice review.

 

Thanks for the review. It's interesting the way that the battery life doesn't scale linearly with the number of cells.

Are the dimensions with the 3 cell or 9 cell battery (ie how much does the 9 cell stick out at the back?).

What PSU comes with the U2E and how heavy is it? Is it something small and light similar to what Sony bundles with its ultra-portables?

John

 

The listed dimensions are with the 3-cell battery (10.9" x 7.6" x 0.98"-1.1"). The dimensions with the 9-cell battery are 10.9" x 8.75" x 0.98"-1.1"

The power brick is pretty small: 1" x 1.75" x 4.25" without the cords sticking out of both ends. The weight of the power brick (with cords) is only 10.8 oz.

Oh, and the slipcase fits the U2E with either the 3-cell or the 9-cell battery ... which is nice since a lot of the freebie slipcases don't fit notebooks with extended life batteries.

 

Hmm , 1.8" HDD's suck , Why are the no decent performing 1.8", The platter size?? Or low RPM? Honestly a decent 1.8" drive will be a killer product from the HDD companys. Its gonna be atleast another 2 years till SSD becomes very popular.

 

I dig the leather. More manufacturers should give more thought to materials.

 

It would have been nice if you guys could have compared this directly to the Vaio TZ, side by side, since this Asus is its only competitor in the same size class and screen size.

Although this is expensive at $2000, you get a lot more than with a same priced Vaio TZ now. You get 3gb of ram (vs 2gb in TZ) , newer chipset (X3100 vs GMA 950), leather case, two batteries, 2 year warranty and mouse. None of that with a $2000 TZ. Not bad at all.

The battery life is also decent considering the many mediocre battery life figures I see from Asus notebooks recently.

My next 11" notebook may be an Asus instead of a Sony.

 

I dig that battery life. Except it sticks out in an ugly sort of way :'{

 

All valid points. Brian is the only one in our office with a TZ (we had to send our loan unit back to Sony) and Brian knows better than to let any of us mess with his personal laptop.

I asked Brian to do some side-by-side comparisons with his TZ today and he'll either post his comments here or I will relay his comments so you know what a current Sony TZ owner thinks of the U2E.

 

Thank you very much.

I was looking to buy an Asus U1E/U2E but then had no choice but to buy my Vaio TZ. Not that I dislike it though, its a great PC.

I would greatly appreciate a comparison, especially if you could compare the screens on both models. Although both seem to use the same 11.1" WXGA LED-backlit screen, I hear Sony still has better color reproduction and brightness.


EDIT: Thank you for confirming the U2E has hardware virtualization enabled unlike the TZ where Sony locks it off as with all Vaios.

Its a shame Asus could only get that battery life with the extended battery that sticks out considerably whereas Sony can get the same life with a standard battery which sticks out minimally.

 

First off, great review.

Second, I was liking everything I saw...until we got to the keyboard. Teeny right shift key shattered the image.

 

Eh, that's nothing. You're talking to someone who uses an Asus Eee PC when he travels ... now that's a tiny keyboard with some messed up keys.

 

So the ASUS for $2000 or a TZ130 for $1200 - both new, I really like the ASUS and leather and newer chipset and 4GB RAM (wonder if this helps the slow hard drive), however at $1200 the Sony might be the better value?

Thoughts?

I too am interested in a comparison to a Sony TZ.

 

Great review, Jerry. It looks like a solid notebook... perhaps one of the finest Asus has produced in a while.

 

Brian finally finished taking a close look at the U2E today and comparing it side-by-side with his personal TZ. Brian is a fan of the VAIO-style keyboards so he didn't like the keyboard on the U2E as much. Overall, the U2E and TZ are pretty much on par with one another in terms of performance and features ... though you get more extras with the U2E.

Brian is a little concerned about the long-term durability of the leather ... but we admit you can't criticize this until you can prove that it doesn't hold up. So far, the leather on the U2E still looks flawless.

Overall, the biggest strike we have against the U2E is that it's priced very close to the Sony TZ. Sure, it makes sense since they're both similar systems, but Asus has something to prove in this market and Sony doesn't. Asus would probably sell MANY more of these U2E packages if they dropped the price by $500.

 

I like the leather palmrest, but the 9 cell sticks out way too much.

The packaging and extra accessories are really nice. Mouse, slipcase, and 2 batteries almost everything you need.

It sucks that the X300 is gimped with such a poor performing processor..

 

Not just its size. Its placement beyond (i.e. to the right of) the up arrow is nuts. You're going to find yourself typing in the lines above, until you make your fingers grow. They should have just put the up/down arrows on the far right & the right arrow back next to the left, for an __| shaped keypad. Much easier to get used to.

 

looks to be a great laptop! - im in the market for a TZ or something similar, and this seems to fit my needs.

i like the 2 batteries - will help me on long plane journeys. www.dabs.com are also listing a model with 120GB hard disk - but only 2gb of memory.

cheers

peter

 

How does the ULV U7500 in the U2 compare to the T7500? Looking at downgrading to a smaller notebook with better battery life, but I am very concerned about the ULV processor in these small notebooks. All I do is web browsing, chat, office type tasks, and some downloading like BT, Mirc, etc.

 

I'm sure Intel could provide a detailed list of the minor technical points that differentiate these two processors, but in practical terms there is little "real world" difference for average users ... other than speed with "complex tasks."

The biggest value of ULV processors is that you get better battery life and you can put ULV processors inside small form factor notebooks without the processor generating so much heat that it melts through the notebook.

In terms of performance, every ULV processor I have ever used provides "good enough" performance. If you need to edit high-resolution images using Photoshop CS3 or encode long digital movie files using Adobe Premiere then you'll quickly realize the ULV processors are underpowered. However, if you just need to work in Microsoft Office, browse the web, chat, do some minor photo editing or watch/listen to digital media like iTunes then the ULV processors provide plenty of performance.

Of course, you can forget about playing Crysis.

As long as you don't expect an ultraportable notebook with an ULV processor to become your everyday Photoshop workhorse or your go-to machine for encoding video you will probably find these notebooks have all the power you "need."

 

The U7500 is 1.06 GHz (2MB L2 Cache 533MHz FSB) so it is roughly half as fast as your T7500.

Use RMClock or similar to (a) see how often your T7500 is running at above 1GHz and then (b) set a profile so that it doesn't run faster than ~1GHz and then see if you notice any speed problem. I've got the single core U1500 in my Sony G11 and I do notice a lag when I try to get it to do two things at once, but a dual core CPU overcomes that problem. In other respects the speed is OK for normal office tasks.

As already noted, the U series power consumption is less when under load and the power leakage when idle is a lot less than normal CPUs. You may also want to look at the notebooks with the L series CPUs. These have intermediate performance and power consumption.

John

 

That's cause the cells in the 3-cell have more performance per cell than the ones in the 9-cell.

 

what is the difference between the u2e models? i know its SSD + HDD for some models

but for U2E A1B and B1B, i can't tell the difference

 

All I can find is that the former has a U7500 1.06ghz processor and the latter has a U7600 1.2ghz processor.

 

Just saw this today. Rahul is correct that the TZ is the main competitor to this laptop. They look pretty much alike because of the same screen and similar layout.

However, I think that the pricing is a major strike against it. I would consider buying a Vaio for that much, but not an Asus. Also, it was interesting to see it lost to the TZ in all benchmarks except the 3DMark one. Maybe things would have been closer with the 1.06Ghz TZ130 or TZ150.

Being the value proposition, Asus needs to step it up and offer something special over the TZ if it wants to compete in the same price arena.

 

Thanks for a great U2E-review. I still have a few questions for the readers of this forum regarding the Asus U2E:

1) The combination of Vista and a 4200rpm-disk - is this speed enough to run things smoothly?

2) Is the 1.06Ghz Core 2 Duo U7500 processor sufficiently strong to run an application like Adobe Lightroom?

3) Have any of you guys tried a clean install of Windows XP on this machine? Problems finding relevant drivers?

 

Just got mine yesterday. The finish and size is amazing! First impressions are good, not as slow as expected, having a VX2S as primary laptop. I will use it as secondary PC/office apps/browsing etc. and believe it's perfect for the tasks.
I agree with the reviewer that the fan noise is pretty high, especially during heavy load. Maybe this will be fixed with a BIOS update

 

Proturbo: What's the boot time like? Ok, slow or too slow? Have you had time checking how smooth applications are running on the system?

 

Haven't had time to play with it that much yet. Boot time has been quite long because of a lot of windows updating. I will make a notice on it as soon as I get back home and all updates are done.
Any specific applications you are thinking of ? IE and surfing is of course smooth, even with Silverlight/Flash apps. Office is also very smooth (no lagging when scrolling etc.)
Only notice is harddrive beeing slower than expected.

 

Office-applications should rune just fine, yes. If wer're talking about Adobe-products, on the other hand..... I am thinking of Adobe Lightroom, perhaps Photoshop. I think the computer will handle Lightroom ok, but I'm being more skeptical to Photoshop.....

Looking forward to your remarks on boot times.

 

maybe mine can be compared, ASUS u1E

Boot time till you can open application, 1:40
shut down time 30 second
hibernate time takes forever

 

Ok, did some simple tests:

Boot till login screen - 1.05
Boot till you can open app - 1.39
Shut down - 35
Sleep - 6
Hibernate - 1.58 (3GB - IE, explorer, Photoshop, messenger running)

No problems browsing and doing office stuff. Also tried editing an image in photoshop CS3 (5,4 MB image size - simple filters, rotation, scaling up/down, RGB->CMYK etc.) without any noticable lag. Seems very good

Anything else I can test ?

 

I really would like to see how the U2E's screen stacks up to the Vaio TZ's side by side, both are 11.1" WXGA LED-backlit, but I keep hearing Sony has the edge.

 

Okay, I just went to my Microcenter to buy a HDD enclosure for my brother and I surprisingly saw the U2E for the first time. They didn't have it when I went there two weeks ago.

Its quite the nice notebook but the screen was nothing compared to the Vaio TZ240 next to it. The Vaio was noticeably brighter and had better color reproduction. I'm surprised since both use 11.1" WXGA LED-backlit screens, thought they'd be equal in screen quality.

I'm quite sure they use the same screens, so Sony has the edge in their backlit technology.

I had been considering the U1E/U2E because its better than the TZ in several ways, can upgrade to more ram, cheaper, newer chipset, better warranty, etc. But the screen is a bit of a dealbreaker. If you look at it alone, it looks fine. But put it next to a TZ and its blown away.

I had partially regretted my TZ purchase when the U1E/U2E came out but not anymore, Sony is king in screens at least which is quite important to me.

 

anandtech just released review for U2E,
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3286

 

I am in the market for either the Asus U2E or Vaio TZ.

I have been looking at side-to-side reviews on the net but have found non. Can anyone point me out in the right direction?

 

Where are you located? If you're in North America, then surely opt for the Asus since their customer service is second to none in the industry.