The name of the series itself connotes that these laptops have something more to offer up their sleeves, but do they really live up to the name? Our answer arrived in the form of the UL80V notebook.

 

 

 

The UL80V is one of the high end models of the UL Series. As opposed to its metallic lid cover, the rest of its build is nearly made up of piano-black plastic, which makes it comfortable to carry around or in a backpack. It comes with a 14-inch LED-backlit widescreen LCD display and built-in Altec Lansing stereo speakers, supported by SRS Premium Sound.
 

 

 

The well-spaced, chiclet keyboard is complemented by a dimpled touchpad.

 

 

 

Above the keyboard, the vast space is occupied by the Express Gate and Power switches. In the case of this notebook, hotkeys are not part of the plan.

 

 

 

 

On the connectivity front, the left side of the UL80V is taken by the HDMI, two USB 2.0, microphone and headphone ports. An extra USB port is assigned to the right, along with the Gigabit Ethernet port, memory card slot, and a standard DVD Super Multi drive. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are the options for wireless connectivity.

 

 

Like the previously reviewed ASUS UX50V (see the July Issue of HWM Philippines), the UL80V incorporates the ASUS GraphiX Boost as well. Through this feature, the notebook can automatically activate either the discreet Intel GMA X4500HD or the more capable NVIDIA GeForce G210M GPU. This mechanism is dependent on any of the four modes which may be selected using the ASUS Power4Gear Hybrid feature: Battery Saving, Quiet Office, Entertainment, and High Performance.

 

 

PCMark Vantage
CPU Clock	1.20GHz	1.40GHz
PCMarkSuite	2528	2447
Memories Suite	1840	1952
TV and Movies Suite	2047	2157
Gaming Suite	2362	2430
Music Suite	2613	2643
Communications Suite	2096	2170
Productivity Suite	2070	2086
HDD Test Suite	3301	3140

 

Inspecting the BIOS, we found out that the UL80V has a simplistic overclocking feature. An option under the Advanced Settings tab, the CPU Over Clock Percentage allows users to type the numerical value that they want to increase the CPU speed. At the lowest accepted value (0), the processor ran at about 1.20GHz. Increasing the value to the highest (9), made it operate at around 1.40GHz while the notebook's AC adapter was plugged in. Launching PCMark Vantage, the notebook earned additional trivial scores in some categories after tweaking. With ASUS being aggressive about marketing the UL Series’ 12-hour battery life, we didn’t let the UL80V escape extra grilling. We put the notebook at Battery Saving Mode using its Power4Gear Hybrid feature, set its display to the dimmest level, and ran Ziff-Davis BatteryMark 4.0. The UL80V set a record of 7 hours and 48 minutes.

 

 

 

On the whole, the UL Series of notebooks is another promising lineup of mobile products from ASUS, and that remark is based on our pleasant experience with the UL80V in general. Though we have a few reservations about its economic construction, the UL80V was able to relatively stay true to what its kind guarantees.