Asus K53U

The Asus K53U is an everyman laptop. There is very little specialisation in its makeup, and its main goal is to cater for low end computing.

It makes up for a negligible processor with affordability, decent sound and a respectable memory. You could get a bit of office work done on it or keep it at home for entertainment purposes.

What we like best

Asus have stocked the K53U with a few handy features that make it very comfortable to use. Things like the IceCool Technology, which keeps the palmrest at a low temperature, and palm proof functionality, which enables the touchpad to distinguish between fingertips and the balls of your hand , will ease your workflow in a big way.

One feature we’re always glad to find is the Power4Gear fan automation. This is a means of conserving battery power and running the system silently, since it factors in battery charge with running applications.

Asus have seen fit to add in a SmartLogon facial recognition feature, which is very capable able of recognising you in various light conditions and it’s also intuitive enough to recognise you with head gear on.

This seems a bit excessive – since the K53U is quite a low-budget laptop, it’s unlikely you will want to use it to store data on it that is so important that it requires biometric security, but it’s a pretty cool feature nevertheless.

The Asus K53U has a swanky design with a sleek looking, almost executive-style metallic brown. It can be configured with a sizable 750 Gb storage as well as a Blu-ray drive. It would work well as a multimedia machine due to its Altec Lansing speakers with SonicFocus, which assure quality sound.

What we like least

The K53U is a very affordable machine, and unfortunately this is due to its rather weak performance.

It can be purchased with the AMD Fusion E-540 or E350, both of which offer an uninspiring 1.65 GHz. It’s troubling to see these processors built mainly for netbooks in a 16 inch laptop, and we can’t conceive of how well this laptop will run Blu-ray.

With optional features like Bluetooth running in the background this laptop certainly won’t win any speed races. It’s no surprise that the K53U doesn’t have a USB 3.0 option since that would probably cripple the processor.