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Battery Life
ASUS S56CA Laptop Battery, S56CA batteries fast shipping to UK, Europe and World.
When we put the ASUS and its 4-cell juicebox through our A41-K56 LAPTOP Battery Test, which consists of continuous Web surfing via Wi-Fi with the display's brightness set to 40 percent, the S56CA took only 4 hours and 39 minutes to croak. That's a fairly weak runtime, as the average mainstream system lasts 5:40. Still, under the same conditions, the Acer V5-571 got an even more anemic mark of 4 hours and 12 minutes.
Design
The ASUS S56CA-DH51's lid is made of handsome brushed black aluminum with a silver ASUS logo in the center. The lid always felt cool in our hands, but attracted a fair amount of fingerprints. The deck is made of silver brushed aluminum and, like the top of the lid, felt cool to the touch. Black plastic covers the bottom of the laptop.
The power button sits in the top left hand corner. The area around the keyboard is sunken, so the keys sit a few millimeters lower than the power button and the touchpad. Six indicator lights are on the left side of the lip.
Beyond being extra thin and light, ASUS S56 ultrabooks pack a full feature set in just 21mm. The cool grey hairline design expresses a personal professional approach. One-piece molded top casing reinforces notebook strength and rigidity, and the entire style embodies subtlety that meets all your performance portability needs.
Display
The ASUS S56CA has a 15.6-inch glossy screen, which features a native resolution of 1366 x 768. When we watched the 1080p version of the Skyfall trailer, we noticed that colors such as the red bars on the British flag and the blue in Daniel Craig's eyes looked vibrant, but fine details such as wrinkled cloth looked fuzzy. (A42-K56 batteries)
When watching the trailer with the ASUS S56CA positioned 45 degrees to the left and right of us on our desk, colors did not wash out often. When they did, only dark hues were affected.When they did wash out, the reflective nature of the glossy display was somewhat distracting, but not enough to keep us from watching.
The ASUS's display notched a brightness rating of 159 lux, which is below the Acer Aspire V5's mark of 171 lux. Both scores are substantially below the 15-inch notebook average of 232 lux.
Audio
The ASUS S56CA sports a pair of hardware-optimized SonicMaster speakers nesting inside a horizontal bar. The bar is lodged within the top of the deck and situated in between the display's hinges. When we listened to Rico Suave by early '90's sensation Gerardo Mejia, we were pleased with the richness of vocals, wind instruments along with drums. When we listened to Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N' Roses, guitars, drums and vocals all sounded accurate. At maximum volume, we noticed no distortion and the speaker filled our test room with music admirably.
Keyboard
We have mixed feelings about the island-style keyboard on the ASUS S56CA. On the plus side, the keys have plenty of space between them, and we like having a dedicated number pad. However, the travel was lacking, resulting in a mushy feel. When we took the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, we averaged 60 words per minute and a 3 percent error rate. Those are below-par numbers for us; usually we notch 68 words per minute with a 1 percent error rate. (ASUS A32-U47 batteries)
Touchpad
At 4.2 x 2.8-inches, the touchpad built into the S56CA's deck is large and provided an accurate pointing experience. Windows 8 gestures worked well, including swiping in from the right to activate the Charms menu and swiping in from the left to switch apps. Two-finger scrolling in both directions also worked well. The integrated button in the touchpad provided just the right amount of resistance.
Heat
After running a full-screen Hulu video for 15 minutes, the S56CA's touchpad, underside and space between the G and H keys registered temperatures of 85, 83 and 88 degrees Farenheit, respectively. We consider anything above 95 degrees to be uncomfortable.
Ports
The left side of the ASUS S56CA houses full-size HDMI and VGA ports along with Ethernet, a power jack and a USB 3.0 port. The left side of the lip stores an SD card reader. Nesting on the right are a pair of USB 2.0 ports, an audio/mic 3.5mm combo jack, an 8X DVD-RW burner and a Kensington lock slot.
Webcam
In natural lighting, the ASUS S56CA's 2-MP webcam recorded images that were overly bright. As a result, dimmer features like facial hair and under-eye darkness were not as apparent as they should have been, while lighter details like highlights in hair were easy to spot. Under fluorescent lighting, the camera produced shots that looked grainy.
Verdict
The ASUS S56CA-DH51 delivers strong performance, a speedy boot time and good sound inside a slim and solid design. We just wish this system lasted longer on a charge and that the keyboard had a little more spring in its step. If you want to dip your toes into the Windows 8 pool --and you don't need touch -- then the S56CA-DH51 should serve you well for years to come.
More info: laptop-batteries.com.au , laptop-battery.org.uk , battery-store.eu
