Asus W5F 12-inch Core Duo Notebook Review

Design (continued)

Like most laptops, there is a wrist rest area to help maintain comfort while typing. The wrist pad area is covered with feature stickers which you should probably peel off before it wears away leaving behind an unsightly adhesive.

The touchpad is not like the smooth pad you find on most laptops – Asus has outfitted the W5F with a touch pad that sits flush with the wrist rest and is slightly textured to provide tactile sensation.

The touch pad is slightly textured and the buttons are backlit.

While some manufacturers like using the front of the laptop for connections, the Asus W5F doesn’t have any. I’m undecided whether this is a waste of usable space, or if it’s a wise design decision as you won’t have cables tangling you up. When the lid is closed, the activity lights are still visible so you can see what the laptop is doing.

Modem, 10/100 LAN, 4-pin Firewire (IEEE1394A) and USB 2.0 ports,
DVD burner, and SD/MMC/MS-Pro reader.

Along the left side of the laptop: media card reader (SD, Memory stick, and MMC), dual layer DVD RW drive, USB, 4-pin Firewire, modem and LAN ports. There is no eject button for the memory card reader, so removing a memory card from the slot can be tricky especially SD cards as they will sit flush with the edge.

Card bus, volume control, microphone and headphoen jacks, USB 2.0 port,
heat exhaust, and VGA port.

The right side has another USB port, audio connections (Line out and Mic/SPDIF), volume jogger, fan exhaust grill, and a VGA / D-Sub port for an external display.

Power port, S-Video output, battery, USB 2.0 port, and Kensington slot.

While the battery takes up 80% of the usable space on the back, Asus still manages to put a few more ports namely the power socket, the last of three USB ports, and a S-Video out.

On the bottom of the W5F are the access hatches for the laptop’s innards. Under the covers is an open SODIMM RAM slot, the HDD, and the CPU.

Finally before going to the next section, the power button is worth special mention as it’s pretty cool! It’s a transparent button that’s backlit with a blue LED. It’s a small touch, but looks and feels very nice – definitely a lot more stylish than your generic plastic buttons.