Interior, Accessories and Software Setup
Getting inside the ASUS U2E is a bit of a pain thanks in large part to its tiny size.  Things have to be packed in pretty tightly in order for ASUS to keep the weight low. 

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The only easily accessible part is under the keyboard when you can find the one memory slot; there are two total but the other is located on the opposite side of the motherboard that we couldn’t get to.

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You can see in this photo that the optical drive (coming from the right) extends out nearly to where the SODIMM memory module starts – that is one tiny mobo!

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Our system was only running at 2.5 GB of memory thanks to a shipping issue – no worries, yours will have all 3GB available.

Included Accessories

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To match the fancy black leather on the U2E ASUS has included a wireless black Bluetooth mouse that takes a couple of AA batteries and connects easily.

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Being a global company, ASUS has to deal with a LOT of different power requirements, hence the ten different plugs for the AC adapter that were included in the press sample.  ASUS did say that not every user was going to get that many plugs though; probably just the ones for your region.

The power brick itself is rated at just about 65 watts of total output though as you’ll see in our power testing that is overkill.

Operating System and Software

As we continue to lament about in our notebook reviews, the software that vendors included on their notebooks is just as important as the hardware itself and can easily break an otherwise great system.

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The ASUS U2E uses the Windows Vista Business 32-bit operating system and this might at first appear to be a BIG draw back since the small system is obviously light on powerful components.  The 3GB of system memory though do a good job of compensating for the Intel ULV processor.  The desktop does show a few pre-installed applications including a copy of Nero DVD burning software and some ASUS utilities we’ll go over on the following page. 

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The system configuration window shows that our testing sample only has 2.5GB of memory – ASUS promises retail models with have 3GB!  The Intel Core 2 Duo U7500 ULV processor is running at 1.06 GHz.  The Windows Experience Index is at 2.8 – not that great but let’s see it in more detail.  

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Of the five main categories of the UEI, the big loser in the graphics department: the Intel GMA is the culprit here obviously.  The non-graphics scores are actually pretty good with the hard drive getting a 5.3 thanks to the SSD drive that ASUS used in our sample.

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And this is my first major gripe with the U2E: with the 32GB SSD drive there is only 6.6GB or so of available storage after the initial boot.  This will be a problem if anyone plans on installing applications like Office 2007 or even Photoshop to work while on the road.  Yes, ASUS is going to include an external 160GB drive free of charge for SSD system buyers, but that really cuts down on the portability in my view. 

Had ASUS included a 64GB SSD instead of the 32GB model the problem would be much less prominent but I still think many users will like the storage of standard 120GB drive model that will also save them some cash.

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