These days, notebook PCs are becoming so commonplace that they hardly turn heads anymore; coffee joints are crowded with folks staring intently at their screens. Once in a while you’ll get to see a head-turner (I’m talking about notebooks!) and more often than not, it’s white in colour. ASUS F8P is available in two shades: Galaxy Black and Amazing White. While the black variant looks all fine and dandy, it’s the white one that will probably attract attention. However, I wouldn’t exactly label it ‘amazing’; sounds a bit too much like a tagline for toothpaste!
Jokes aside, ASUS F8P isn’t to be laughed at. The Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 shows that it means business. With the core running at 2.2GHz, it will chew through the most demanding applications (otherwise known as games). ASUS is also nice enough to bundle 2 Gigabytes of DDR2-667MHz memory with the ASUS F8P. But as usual, we’d highly recommend 4GB, especially if you have Vista Ultimate installed. Although users will only be able to use around 3GB of their memory on a 32-bit OS, it will still speed things up slightly. Microsoft won’t ship 64-bit version CDs to OEM customers so unless you buy Vista Ultimate in retail packaging, getting a 64-bit version of Vista can be a pain in the neck.
ASUS has opted to go down the ATI path for the graphics chipset. The Mobility Radeon HD 2400 has 256Mb of on-board memory and while it’s not exactly a screamer, it is better than any integrated solution. The Intel 965PM chipset in the ASUS F8P is paired with the 4965AGN Wi-Fi chipset, giving the whole bundle full Santa Rosa platform compliancy. To speed things up further, there’s also a 512MB Intel Turbo Memory module inside. It’s pretty obvious that ASUS intended for the F8P to be a performance machine and we’ll see about that later. In the meantime, storage is provided by a Seagate 160GB 5400RPM hard disk while the optical drive is a Lightscribe-capable LG DVD writer.
The LCD screen measures 14.1 inches and it has a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:10 (1,280 by 800 pixels). There’s a 1.3 Megapixel webcam perched on top of the screen which can be tilted up/down or turned 180 degrees around; come to think of it, this notebook might be handy for police interrogations. While it is clearly targeted at retail consumers (can you imagine engineers or accountants using all-white notebooks?), ASUS has decided to integrate a fingerprint reader anyway. This sits in between the touchpad buttons and while we’re on that subject matter, I have to mention that the touchpad is rather large. Not a bad thing actually, but it does stand out. The keyboard isn’t very well spaced out and the arrow keys in particular will cause problems amongst users with stubby fingers. There are also five easy access buttons but no multimedia control buttons to be found.
As far as expansion ports are concerned, ASUS F8P has a fair share. There are five USB 2.0 ports and an i.LINK (Sony’s fancy name for FireWire) port. For video connectivity, you’ll get a DVI port, as well as 15-pin D-sub and S-Video Out connectors. There are also a multi-format flash card reader and an Express Card/54 expansion slot. And not forgetting the Gigabit Ethernet and analogue modem ports, of course. The power switch is located on the side of the right hinge, which isn’t usual for ASUS, and to make sure you don’t call up tech support looking for it, there’s a “Power ->” label on the hinge!
Now, let’s see how this machine performs; the CPU coughed up a healthy 5,654 points which soundly thrashes other T7500-equipped machines by around 2-4%. Next up, the memory benchmark gave it 4,594 points which is again above average. The Mobility Radeon HD 2400 chipset managed 2,607 points which is hardly impressive, considering that NVIDIA’s 8400M GS has been known to produce scores above 3,100. We were expecting the ASUS F8P to perform slightly better (in these three departments) seeing how ASUS hasn’t scrimped on the components. Anyway, the final score of 4,907 from the hard disk drive saved the F8P’s hide as it basically trounced every other score in our table. I’d take this with a pinch of salt, as the Robson module (Intel Turbo Memory) might have something to do with it. But everything considered, the ASUS F8P is still a very capable machine, except if you’re planning to play lots of games on it. If that’s the case, take a look at the company’s G series gaming notebooks instead.
For those who want something (just a tiny) bit flashy, take a closer look at the “Amazing White” ASUS F8P. It is a fine machine with good specifications, and a head-turner too!
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