If anyone is looking for a slim affordable notebook then the Asus S56CA is a decent buy Have used it or couple of days now and below are my observations Build Quality For most part the build quality is quite good. The aluminium finish is probably the best thing on a laptop in this price range. It feels and look good. But the black aluminium finish on the top is a fingerprint magnet. And it hard to wipe those fingerprint off the laptop. The screen bezel is made of plastic and that spoils the look of the laptop when the lid is open. Also my laptop has a slight but noticeable gap in the optical drive slot Screen Its a 15.6" 1366x768 screen. Not the sharpest display. I think this is the standard resolution at this price range. But the colors are slight washed and not very accurate. I have seen equivalent samsung laptops with better display. Overall this is a average screen. Performance The i5 3317U is a low voltage processor clocked at 1.7Ghz with TurboBoost upto 2.6Ghz. For normal operations like browsing, movies, music you cant go wrong with this. I never felt there was a lack of processing power. There is no slowdown even while having multiple tabs open while watching HD movies I have not installed too many apps. And the 4gb RAM looks ok for now. The 4gb stick is in one slot, so you can get another 4gb and pop it in if needed There is a 24gb SSD and 750gb 5400 rpm HDD. The SSD acts as cache. The couldn't find any difference in speed due to the SSD. Its as fast as my desktop running on some old HDD Gaming This has got a Intel HD 4000. So i don't expect any games to run on this. You might get some games running at low, low-mid settings. But this laptop is not equipped or intended to be a gaming machine OS Windows 8 has got some steep learning curve. It mght be good for touch devices, but i prefer Win7 over it. There is another version of the laptop with Win 7. Its better to go with that. This also is not Win 8 pro. The upgrade costs Rs 8000. There is no easy way to downgrade to Win 7. With Windows 8 prebuilt computers and notebooks that are deemed "Windows 8 Certified" adhere to certain security protocols on the BIOS level that make installing an OS other than what came with the machine increasingly difficult. And the BIOS on this is lacking a lot of features. So you are stuck with Win 8. I got some apps to get back the start button and got the windows aero theme. EDIT: I did manage to get windows 7 installed. Its so much better now Touchpad and Keypad The touchpad is quite good on this. Initially it was having some issues with single tap. Make sure you update to the latest elan touchpad drivers. All your issues will be solved. It has a keypad with numeric keys. It is not backlit. Key press gives a good tactile feedback. Battery Life It has got a 4cell battery and i could manage around 4 hrs on full charge with medium brightness. Charging is quite quick. Asus Bloatware There is not much of them. Some 6-7 apps. You can uninstall all of them Connectivity Do not have any wifi or bluetooth issues Overall this is pretty good slim laptop. It wont call it an ultrabook because of it weight. It weighs 2.3 kgs which is quite heavy
as usual great Flipkart packing advantages: 1) ultra book in low cost 2) great performance 3) good configuration 4) 10/10 looks 5) less weight 6) ultra book with DVD RW 7) 8/10 screen resolution 8) great extra features in mouse pad 9) 5hrs battery back up 10) I got 1year global warranty and next 2 years domestic warranty 11) nice asus bag. 12)genuine windows Disadvantage: Not much fast. over all nice product with in my budget, I am happy.
Pros : - ASUS laptops look cool - screen size is good enough and yet not that heavey - Along with 24 GB SSD, which allows to start a junk like Windows 8 in around 10 secs - Battery back up is fair enough around 2.5 hrs with full usage - Touch pad is highly configurable like in MAC - 1 usb 3.0 port - Nevertheless excellent flipkart delivery. Cons: - Not sure, is it problem with flipkart or Asus, the power adapter cable is too short. Last time, when I bought a Dell laptop the adapter length was short too. In local store, I checked that the cable is longer. Either you need to be very nearer to the power cord or need to have an extension cable cord. If your plug at home is not very strong, do not hang the power adapter. - Windows 8 is memory chewing machine. Thinking about downgrading to windows 7, as far as I have seen, with valid product key, windows 8 can be downgraded to windows 7. I guest microsoft probably knew people would do it ;)
Hey guys received the product in just 2 days. Awesome packaging and delivery time. Product is awesome... One of the Best Value for Money products. 24gb sandisk ssd used as express cache is awesome....U enjoy both the speed of SSD for using ur windows and 750gb for data... Simply great product at great price....upgraded my ram to 8gb.. Battery life is decent wifi off gives max 4.5-5hrs....Wifi on...browsing and stuff gives 3hrs+.. Runs pretty cool as no dedicated graphic card... Way cooler than any normal lappy that i have used.. Installed windows 7 as i did not like 8 ...it depends on personal choice... It is recommended for all who want to enjoy both worlds...portability...light and performance.. Great Product and Thanks Asus for nice product.
Owning lots of computer components manufactured by Asus, I always had a lot of faith in their engineering department. But I had the idea that they were not verygood designers, as their laptops looked bland and boring. Not Anymore. The S56CA is a looker. It will blow any laptop, ultrabook in its segment and in higher segments in terms of looks. Its Metallic finishing and chamfered edges take excellent to feel and look. With that it is super slim and hence it gets a well deserved 9/10 in looks from me. The above 2 kg weight is considerably low for a notebook, but not for an ultrabook, which are lighter. Still for a 15.6inch machine it is quite easy to carry around. Though If you are planning to use a backpack, as this comes with a sidebag, if might have some problem getting this inside your bag as this is a big laptop. Now coming to Performance. The i5 variant in this ultrabook is one of the new very low voltage ones. It gives considerably good multitasking performance with no lags. Opening 20 tabs on Google Chrome and then running a calculation process in the background took up 100% of the 4 threads on a very healthy 72degree temperature. Thus the CPU is a great one, unless obviously you are a CG artist. Photoshop and AfterEffects renders went pretty smooth. The RAM is properly fast, with performances close to that of a Corsair Vengeance on my PC. The SSD is used as cache to boost hybernate and wakeup procedures. This has limited applicability, but the 10days standby battery backup is worth it. But I always feel that some extra space in the SSD would have allowed us to install Windows on it, and hence speed up the system by a huge amount. It comes with an Win8, but I will recommend to delete that and use Win7. YOU CAN USE THE SSD AS CACHE EVEN IN WIN7. For performance it will get a 7.5/10. Graphics and Display is never the best features of an Utrabook. The display is good when viewed straight, but has some reflection issues. But this is common when you are going for budget ultrabook. The HD 4000 is not gaming, rather for enjoying smooth 1080p videos, and it does that job masterfully. Thus keeping the price in mind the k56ca gets a 6.5/10 in this section. Battery is great. I had read that this has a not so good battery backup. But I have using it for the past 3 weeks. On balanced mode and watching movies, surfing the net on WIFI and reading my battery juiced out at an average 5hours 30mins. On powersaver it will run even more. Plus the battery takes about 40 minutes to recharge fully. So the battery will get a 9/10 from me. Manufacturing Quality is upto Asus' standards. The machine is strongly fit. The position of the Speakers are excellent. Though my display seems to flutter under strong winds, otherwise there seems to be no other problems. No heating issues, no excessive fan noises or HDD clicks. So a 8/10 on this section. FInally the price. I bought this at 38.5k from an Asus store in Kolkata. They gave a 3 years global warranty. At this price there is no other manufacturer selling a proper ultrabook. Hence being the cheapest ultrabook it is easily comparable to Dell's or Hp's which are priced in the 50-60k brackets. In looks it beats them hands down, in the other aspects its better in few and slightly less in the others. The sole point of an ultrabook is its Usability and looks. And in the price and usability segment it gets a 10/10. I highly recommend this product to a wide range of users, from students to investment bankers. Simply because it will do whatever you ask it to and look great while doing that.