The New Asus UL20A....

Especially at a premium price. I"m still interested if they are still claiming 12hrs of battery and its street price is within $50 of it's competition. If not I'll probably get the Acer as long as it gets at least an 8hr battery.

 

12 hours battery is really tasty... I hope it is more than just a claim.

 

http://ohsnos.com/2009/UL20_Lfet_Open135.jpg

http://ohsnos.com/2009/UL20_Lfet_Side.jpg

http://ohsnos.com/2009/UL20_Right_Side.jpg

 

Looks very, very handsome indeed. My opinion is subjective but it has the best looks (chasis design) among its competitors - Acer, Samsung, Lenono, Toshiba, etc. Easy to swoon over, until you look deeper than the skin and the warts start showing up -- such as no HDMI and apparently no bluetooth.

 

What? No Bluetooth either? What's next, the battery only lasts 4 hours?

Actually, if the battery really last 12 hours, I still want it, but the needs to be closer $500 without HDMI and Bluetooth.

 

Yeah, according to the discussions at Amazon over the UL series, where an Asus rep. is responding to questions -- the UL series won't have bluetooth.

Not sure if that is really true, but at this rate of feature removal that Asus is doing, I'm going to have to go with the Acer 1810tz

 

Don't know about the US model. But the pre-Sys7
Asus UL20a selling here in Taiwan does have Bluetooth 2.1.

 

Here's a confirmation that UL30-X3 does NOT have bluetooth. So maybe its safe to say that the cheaper UL20 won't have bluetooth either

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5391877#post5391877

So Asus leaves out HDMI and bluetooth in the UL20, while all the competitors to the UL20 seem to have both (?). I guess thats what happens when they already have a more expensive U series to sell which has these features...

 

I wonder how the Asus 1201N will stack up?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5395186&postcount=1

 

Hmm, a dual core atom sure sounds interesting indeed, so do the graphics and rest of the specs, but I am circumspect about the atom's perfomance still... I mean, Intel really meant it to be a MID cpu and not really a true laptop's and I'm really looking a for a thin-and-light laptop. So I'll consider even a dual core atom seriously after I'm impressed with some kind of benchmarking In terms of hard numbers so far, does the atom not have any cache?

 

The N330 has 1mb L2 cache, and the N330 is just two single core N230's stuck together, so it doesn't perform as well as a native dual core would.

 

Aha, interesting to note that Intel is still gluing together separate cores. Thanks for that info.

 

They aren't, the Pinetrail D510 which replaces the N330 is a native dual core.

 

It seems like the UL20's in Singapore are claiming a battery life of 6 hrs, not 12 (even though rest of the UL series does claim 12 h in the US). Wondering if this version has lower wattage batteries or will the running time be the same across the Pacific in the US...

http://cgi.ebay.com.sg/ASUS-UL20A-N..._216?hash=item2a017d870e&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

Looks like good

 

If that's true, Acer's 1810tz wins hands down. At $599 it will have the same SU7300 processor, HDMI, Bluetooth and a claimed battery life of 8hrs. Not only that, they will offer a SU4100 for $550. Then we have the Asus 1201N to consider...

 

Agreed, and the battery lasts over 8 hrs according at least one test:
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/acer-aspire-1810t.aspx?page=2

 

But the Asus UL20a probably runs cooler than the Acer 1810t?

 

waiting for asus to make a UL series with:

1. arrandale
2. 9400M (any higher end integrated graphics)
3. USB 3.0
4. SSD
5. non wobbly battery
6. better keyboard

 

How about Asus throwing in strippers too???

 

Actually, they throw in a mouse and some kind of a satchel. I think we'll have to live with that for now... or not

 

Not sure if you mean wire strippers or people strippers.
But if you were thinking people, Taiwan actually is a very conservative, family-oriented society. With academic and even religious values that would shame at least one North American country.
Maybe Thailand. Never visited.

About the UL20a... very little interest here since we determined
that HDMI & Bluetooth (in us) are not included.
Too bad, because it is a great machine.

 

Depending on the actual battery life and street price, it's still on my short list.

 

I really would've liked the UL20 too, but its not making any rational sense to me, given the claimed battery life is half-hour less than the 1810t and weight is a pound heavier (aside from no HDMI and bluetooth). Well, at least the decision was easier than I thought it would be.

 

So it's already available on Amazon for pre-order for 590$.

It'll come out on October 22nd and they claim 7.5 hours of battery life.

 

Why does the UL30 weigh less than this?

 

Lol, exactly what I was wondering.

 

Maybe if it had a 12 hr battery as originally claimed, but no way now. What a nail.

 

Whoah whoah, why does it weigh more than the UL30a? And with only 7.5hrs battery life, there no way it's packing an 8 cell...

 

That must be a misprint.
Theres no way a 12" netbook weight 4.18lbs(maybe 12" laptop with dvd drive).
Asus listed the UL20 as 1.5kg which is 3.3lbs.

 

Yeah ... was kinda disappointed by the battery life

Still ... a pretty notebook. Still not sure why it is so heavy though. Maybe designed to be extra tough and resilient? (Stretching on this one, I know....)

 

The U20A with 6-cell battery is listed as 1.9kg or 4.18lbs. Seeing the lack of information on these new models from Acer's website, perhaps that's what they based it off of?

 

Looking at the 1810 vs. the UL20A, I can't bring myself to go for the UL20A. As others have mentioned, it's just not rational

 

The only thing the UL20a has over the 1810 is its looks.

 

I also expect build quality to be higher. Although 1810T is good enough for my use.

 

It seems in the official release of the UL20a, a battery life of 8 hrs and an optional bluetooth is being claimed. However, at the various online U.S. retailers, the battery life is quoted as 7.5 hrs and bluetooth is consistently absent. Maybe Asus is making some marketing approximations

If anyone gets them, it'd be nice to know the truth, and also some pictures if possible, especially since there are almost no reviews of the UL20 are available...

 

I think Asus is going to have a hard time. At the same pricepoint, Acer is offering Bluetooth and more importantly HDMI.

There's also the NEW Acer 1410, which is basically the 1810 without bluetooth, 4400mah battery and SU2300 "Celeron" CPU. The SU2300 is a DUAL core, and the only different between it and the more expensive SU series appears to be cache and maybe .1GHz clock speed. MSRP is $399. I think many people might be in the same boat as me, although I love the look of the UL20A, the lack of features + high price tag is going to make it very difficult to justify.

 

I like the specs on the Acer CULV lines, but the keyboard layouts make me want to scream. How do you totally botch a layout like that?

No need for HDMI here, the UL20A is on my short list at the moment..

 

I've checked with a local vendors in Taipei who said the UL20A runs for around 6 hours if you have everything on and is actually using the computer. They didn't go into specifics, so it's hard to say how accurate their measurement really is.

The ads here do say 12 hours, but they measured with Battery Mark 2006 life mode?, LCD at 60nits (lowest setting?), Wifi/BT off and battery saving mode on.

UL20A with Windows 7 (64-bit) costs around $800 in Taipei, but comes with Bluetooth and a 320GB hdd. I can't quite figure out why it's over $200 more than in the states. Bluetooth and an additional 70GB really doesn't cost that much. Prior to the 22nd, you could have gotten a free usb dvd drive with the Vista version for $750 or so.

Also, the UL20A uses an Intel WiFi Link 1000 chip for wireless.

 

Hello,

I have a couple of questions about this notebook:

1- Is the included 2GB of RAM one or two SODIMMs?
2- The bottom of the keyboard is black on official pictures but some pictures from users show it as silver like the UL30. Is it a regional thing?

I'm looking at the UL20 because it is a lot cheaper than the Acer 3810T and is dual-core (Acer only sells single-core Timelines here) but then again maybe even a netbook (1005HA) would suffice for my needs.

 

Is there no one here who bought an UL20? It'd be nice to see some feedback and their personal pictures of the unit from them.

Or is it that only non-enthusiasts (people who don't visit this site) are buying the UL20 (or that no one is buying it at all)

 

In the US it's not out yet and people from elsewhere in the world who may have it aren't posting.

 

I've played with one in the showrooms and it's basically a smaller version of the UL80/UL30. It comes with a smaller battery, has no hdmi port, but weights less.

 

Is it that bad?

Oh choices choices... UL20A or Acer AS1410.

 

Asus really dropped the ball on the UL20a.
Such a beautiful notebook but they ruined it with the price/specs.

 

Another reason to get the UL20.
According to liliputing, today Amazon starts selling it with a 75$ gift card certificate which is somewhat equivalent to getting the notebook for 515$.

 

You know the reason why Asus never sent out any of the UL20a for review or not even promoting much of the laptop is probably they realize they made a big mistake.
Its been over 1 week since the release and we know as much of it when it was first announce...pretty much nothing.

 

i agree, dont like the acer keyboard. not enough key travel, and not enough room to rest your palms at the bottom. i'd rather have smaller keys, and larger palm rest.

thinking about the ul20a, but the heavy weight and shorter battery life are concerning.

 

The $75 gift card deal is on now. Looks like it would be about $506.00 which isn't a bad deal if you don't care about the Bluetooth and HDMI port. An Acer 1810T sets you back $599.00.

 

Maybe you ought to compare the $506 deal with the $399 deal of the Acer 1410 SU2300 with bluetooth and HDMI