Looking for a laptop to replace that dated desktop of yours? There's no shortage of options in what's already a crowded field of desktop replacement laptops. The Asus K52F-A1 ($679.99 list, at Best Buy) provides plenty of firepower to handle your daily workload and features state-of-the-art WiMax and Wireless Display technologies from Intel. The one drawback is battery life, one of the lowest in this category. For its modest price, though, the Asus K52F-A1 is still one of the coolest kids on the block.
Design
The lid is made up of a brown plastic finish, which can easily be smudged and marked up. Further in, the palm rest has a copper-tone color and is coarsely textured, almost having a metallic feel to it. The design isn't as remarkable as other laptops in its class: The Dell Inspiron 17R-2248MRB ($849.99 list, 3.5 stars), whose plastic is designed to resemble brushed aluminum. The Samsung R540-11 ($999 list, 4 stars) gets the most style points, made with plastics that resemble wood. The Asus K52F-A1 weighs in at 5.8 pounds, a bit on the heavier side for a 15-inch laptop, but nothing unmanageable. The HP Pavilion dv6-3123cl ($599.99 list, 3.5 stars), by comparison, is a full half a pound lighter at 5.3 pounds.
The 15.6-inch widescreen allows for a full-size keyboard, but is significantly smaller than the Dell Inspiron 17R's 17.3-inch widescreen. The keyboard style resembles chiclet gum pieces; this particular one lacks depth, unlike the more user-friendly traditional keyboard of the Dell Inspiron 17R-2248MRB. There's also an adjacent numeric keypad, similar to other desktop replacements like the Samsung R580-JBB2 ($729.99 list) and Acer Aspire AS5745-7247 ($599.99 list, 4.5 stars).
The touchpad is generously sized, with dedicated mouse buttons. It blends in, almost camouflaged, with the rest of the laptop. The touchpad is comparable to the one found on the Samsung R580-JBB2, with its red-swirled color scheme blending in with its own palm rest. The touchpad on the K52F-A1 has the same coarse texture as the palm rest, whereas the touchpad on the Samsung R580-JBB2 is smooth. While navigating around with the touchpad, I found that the reaction time of the cursor lagged just a bit behind my finger movements. However, a few adjustments in the control panel fixed that.
Features
The K52F-A1 comes with a 500 GB, 5,400rpm hard drive. It has a standard helping of ports, including a VGA port, HDMI, 3 USB, and a 3-in-1 (MMC, SD, MS) flash memory card reader. For just $50 more, though, the Samsung R580-JBB2 comes with an e-SATA/ USB combo port (for more rapid data transfer) and an enticing Blu-ray disc drive. The Altec Lansing speakers, located on the front of the system, delivered a noticeably crisp and sharp sound when I played some sample video and sample jazz music on it.
The wireless capabilities of this system go beyond a simple Wi-Fi connection. Like your built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi card, WiMax and Wireless Display are both Intel wireless technologies that can simplify your life. WiMax (or 4G), essentially, allows you to connect to the internet anywhere within the 54 cities where WiMax towers have been built. Think of it as a city-wide Wi-Fi connection, with which you can download web pages at speeds ranging from 2 to 5 Mbps. This luxury, however, comes with a $20-40 monthly fee from a service provider like Sprint or Clearwire. The Wireless Display (WiDi) feature allows you to connect your laptop to an HDTV, wirelessly. The transmitter is already inside the laptop, so no need to use up any ports or pesky HDMI cables. There's one catch, though: You'll have to buy a Netgear Push2TV ($100) receiver box to enable this wireless connection.
Performance
Aside from battery life, the K52F-A1 was within range of most other desktop replacements in our tests. It scored 5,045 in PCMark Vantage, not far behind comparable systems like the Samsung R580-JBB2 (5,326) and Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5820T-5951 ($723 list, 4 stars) (5,233). It scored well ahead of the HP Pavilion dv6-3123cl (3524), which uses the budget AMD Athlon II P320 (2.1GHz) processor. The Editors' Choice HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl ($999 list, 4 stars), however, is the rock star of the group (5,677). In our Handbrake video encoding test, the K52F-A1 gave a time score of 3:10, with only the Dell Inspiron 17R-2248MRB having a noticeably faster time (2:44). Integrated Intel graphics is all you get, so the K52F-A1 won't impress you with its 3D gaming proficiency. The HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl, which uses the ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 GPU, will do the trick if 3D gaming is your cup of tea.
The K52F-A1 came in at 3 hours 25 minutes in MobileMark 2007, with its 6 cell Lithium Ion (49 WH) battery. Only the Toshiba Satellite L675D-S7046 ($649.98 list, 2.5 stars) performed worse (3 hours 7 minutes), but it does have a bigger 17-inch screen, to be fair. The Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5820T-5951 gave the highest battery score (7:37), due to the simple fact that it comes with a bigger battery.
The Asus K52F-A1 comes loaded with the ammo you need to tackle all your daily tasks, and the wireless technology makes it a standout. However, there may be more attractive options out there, depending on what you're looking for. If you're looking for Blu-ray playability, a few bucks more can get you the aforementioned Samsung R580-JBB2. If you're looking for a more powerful system, the Editors' Choice HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl will quench your thirst. If saving money is your thing, the Editors' Choice for budget laptops, the Acer Aspire AS5745-7247 provides similar muscle as the Asus K52F-A1, and a huge 640GB hard drive capacity, but without the wireless bells and whistles.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Asus K52F-A1 with several other laptops side by side.
• Toshiba Satellite L655-S5096
• Sony VAIO VPC-F136FM/B
• Acer Aspire AS5742Z-4097
• Asus G73JH-BST7
• HP Pavilion dv7-4165dx
• more
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