DTR notebook ASUS A4500D

The trends of progressing Russia's market of notebooks and the popularity of ASUS trademark have made it possible for the company to gain outstanding success in this walk. According to the data for the 2nd quarter of 2005, the share of ASUS on the market amounted to 13.1%, which allowed the manufacturer to become the second after Acer, losing merely 5.9% to it and take a 1.7% lead over RoverBook (Russia). Due to known reasons, it got the third place.

According to the forecasts of analysts, there is the probability that the difference between ASUS and RoverBook in future may turn even narrower. RoverBook is not going to give in its positions and is doing its best to attract the buyer with Russian price and availability of models. Anyway, the companies follow different approaches in winning the market. While the "soap-box" of RoverBook is again the low price for the produce, ASUS offers the topmost quality of maintenance, assembly, and of course unmatched reliability. At these, the Russian rival is losing much, unfortunately. Therefore, we can state ASUS notebooks, like most of the company's produce, are in good standing in Russia. For instance, according to the polls conducted by our web site, over 50% of respondents would prefer an ASUS motherboard as a product for future upgrade. It must not be ruled out that notebooks by the company will eventually gain such a wide public recognition.

Today we received a DTR-notebook ASUS A4500D which is positioned by the company as a "performance solution". In fact the term "DTR" itself just implies "Desktop Replacement". The model is based on the mobile processor Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and is equipped with discreet graphics by ATi - Radeon Mobility 9200. Besides, the device offers other advantages as well, e.g. the Gigabit Ethernet LAN controller, a card reader for flash cards of the most popular formats.

Here are some more "dainties". The A4 series (on both Intel and AMD platforms) is represented by DTR notebooks and thus offers certain features. The processors by two companies are very similar to their "desktop versions", so they don't stand out with low heat emission, which is certainly to the detriment of the mobility. In particular, because of the massive cooling systems the housings of the whole series turned out to be a bit too large, and the weight, depending on the type of the batteries, may reach 4 kg.

Evidently, it is a problem carrying this notebook around to the office or studies. First, after half an hour of walking with such a "luggage" your arms will get tired, and secondly, the dimensions of such a device are too huge to make yourself comfortable in the right place at the right time. This is just the major issue with all the DTR notebooks - the devices are not meant for journeys and permanent travel. The are aimed at replacement of desktop personal computers since they take up a few times less space than desktop PCs, make less noise and consume less power. As an added bonus, they are cheaper than mobile analogs and easier to upgrade.

Well, all in good time.

I must admit the package bundle of A4500D did appeal to me. Take for instance the "proprietary" bag which at its make and properties is comparable to models costing $100 or even more.

The bag has three compartments and a front pocket to keep pens, pocket-books and plastic cards in.

Another pleasant surprise for the worshippers of ASUS produce is the optical mouse bearing a company logo. But it is made by Logitech, which is also not bad at all.

Besides, the package bundle includes a few CDs with games - GunMetall, Battle Engine aqualia, as well as demo versions of Splinter Cell ROC, Big Mutha Truckers, Breed, Colin McRae Rally 3, and Toca Racer Driver.

And of course there are standard items - AC power adapter, a S-VIDEO-Composite adapter, and the licensed MS Windows XP Home with the integrated Service Pack 2.

Design and layout

The design of the notebook is typical of the ASUS style. The housing is dark grey, with the rear and "face" parts made in the classical black. As we already mentioned, the size of the device are too big for a mobile computer, so it looks rather clumsy and huge. But for some it is a plus rather than disadvantage. With these dimensions the owner can allegedly outline the power and "advanced make" of the "metal pal", so we can stay assured this model will definitely find its worshippers. What we can state with absolute confidence is that our pretty ladies will not like ASUS A4 much.

On all the sides except the front, there are various interfaces and ports.

On the left side, the notebook has two USB 1.1/2.0 ports, a jack for earphones and microphone, a Kensington Lock slot, and a switch for changing the battery operation modes. In the "OFF" position, the charging and battery operation of the notebook is locked, and "ON" toggles the blocking.

The right-hand side is equipped much more. There is a Combo-DVD drive, a PCMCIA slot, a card reader for handling memory cards MMC, SD, MS, MS PRO, an IR port, IEEE1394, and two more USB-ports.

On the rear side of the device, there is a very rare today LPT port, a VGA connector, RJ-11 and RJ-45 ports, as well as S-VIDEO TV-Out.

Let's look at the keyboard. The large size of the housing allowed the engineers and designers not to save on this component, so the keys proved full-sized with distinctly seen letter characters in both languages. The keyboard is very convenient in operation, with the key moving smoothly. The positioning of functional keys is also sensible, although the sound volume keys and screen brightness control keys are brought upwards and not aligned with the arrow keys as it is common for most notebooks.

The Touchpad looks very stylish, with the size of the panel being large enough. What is annoying is the lack of the scroll wheel, although it is made up for by the "scroll bar" made on the right-hand edge of the touchpad.

Under the keyboard, there are additional buttons which enable the touchpad and Wi-Fi, which allows switching between the AC mains and battery operation modes and assign one of the keys for launching a "favorite" application.

Another advantage in the notebook control is the Audio DJ technology. Under the touchpad there are buttons to control audio and video playback. This very useful and handy thing can control the playback in most varied media players.

The 2W stereo speakers are hidden under the keyboard, their volume level is enough to watch films in an office. Games and music also do well.

There is one interesting point to note. Having looked at the specifications plate, you can see a note of the Wi-Fi 802.11b wireless standard, but don't be flattered by that. Having looked through the notebook specifications more closely, we can see that it is not an integrated module but a separate USB controller which is optional and missing in the package bundle of our model.

Hardware capabilities

Traditionally, we start with the processor.

ASUS A4500D uses the mobile version of AMD Athlon 64 3000+. Although there aren't many differences, still they are there. The major advantages of the CPU is the use of ClawHammer core with the L2 cache size being 1 MB. The L1 cache is 128K, 64 K of which is for the L1 code and 64 K of L1 data. The model supports most instruction sets - MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, as well as is compatible to 64-bit operating systems, e.g. MS Windows XP 64-bit. Unfortunately, the processor lacks support for SSE3. In fact, there aren't so many programs that use this instruction set, so it can hardly be regarded as a minus.

Among other things, Mobile Athlon 64, as it should be, offers the PowerNow! power-saving technology, more known for its desktop version as the Cool'n'Quiet. Owing to that, in the office work mode the system is able consuming less power, which favors to the prolongation of standalone battery operation and thus less heat emission to the atmosphere. These indicators are also related to the noise produced during operation. For example, under the minimum multiplier the processor cooler intermittently snaps on just to expel hot air. At the same time, at the maximum performance the fan doesn't stop at all (of course, unless you work with the notebook -25С outside). As regards the processor performance, it is more than enough for office work and most games. It's a pity the same can't be said about the installed video card.

Let's dwell on the motherboard and the chipset. The motherboard itself is made by ASUS, as is seen from the brown color of the textolyte. It is based on the already outdated NVIDIA's single-chip nForce 3 150 GO chip. We already know its "desktop" characteristics quite well, so we'd rather not accentuate on the specifications of the mobile version.

The chipset is compatible to AMD Socket754 processors offering single-channel memory controllers. To the AGP graphic interface, the mobile Radeon 9200 is plugged in. There is also support for SATA-150, and RAID features (not implemented), Gigabit LAN, six-channel AC'97 audio, and eight USB ports, of which merely four are implemented. The remaining is standard and is of no special interest.

Sempron/Athlon 64 Socket754 processors support the single-channel memory architecture only. Therefore, installing two memory modules is not mandatory. In our case, the notebook uses one DDR333 256 MB memory module by Nanya.

The overall memory capacity can be increased to 2 GB through fitting 1GB DDR 266/333 or 400 MHz into each SODIMM slot.

The Mobility Radeon 9200 video adapter offers 32 MB of own memory, uses 4 pixel pipelines with 1 TMU per each pipeline, and is hardware-compatible to Microsoft DirectX 8.1.

The video subsystem runs at 200MHz for the core and 460 MHz for the memory, respectively. The memory bus is 256-bit wide, which doesn't add much to the performance.

For tests we selected a few modern games and benchmarking suites 3DMark 2001, 3DMark 2003. Without too much skepticism we can say that the results are dejecting and aren't much better than the figures demonstrated by Intel's onboard graphics.

In fact, see for yourselves:

If we push the resolution down to 800х600 and the graphics quality at least to the medium, the results would be much better. But that doesn't bring much joy. Also, in 100% cases the 512 MB of RAM is required.

The network support is implemented with a Marvell Yukon Gigabit network controller. In its turn, the 6-channel Realtek ALC650 codec is in charge of audio. Unfortunately, the capabilities of the latter are not yet implemented to the full, so you would have to buy a separate PCMCIA sound card to plug in a good multi-channel audio system.

The integrated modem offers nothing special, although its operation is quite satisfactory. Apart from its immediate purpose, the device can be programmatically tuned for sending or receiving faxes.

Among the shortcomings of the notebook is the lack of mini-PCI slot. Of course, the Wi-Fi module can be plugged via the USB as the manufacturer suggests or to buy a PCMCIA device. On the other hand, the USB version is not very convenient for a number of reasons, and the so valuable PCMCIA slot can be activated for other purposes as well. For example, to plug in a TV tuner, a sound card, a powerful modem, etc.

We did like the LCD screen matrix. The viewing angles are not high, and the screen also has negative TN+Film sides, but unlike similar offerings by competitors this product by ASUS offers good color rendition and high image contrast.

The integrated DVD-CDRW-drive by Matsushita (Panasonic) allows operating CD/CD-RW disks at 24Х and DVD at 8х. We did a CD/DVD read speed test with Ahead Nero CD-DVD Speed.

The HDD made by HITACHI proved quiet in operation, and here are its full specifications:

The last and very important system component - the battery, which was ruled out of the tests because of its incapacity. We received the notebook with the originally inoperative battery, so the tests failed.

The cooling system of the notebook is made at a very high standard, as it should be for a reputed manufacturer. Of course, there are some "excesses" which are not essential. For instance, at the system start-up the "roar" of all the fans resembles that of Boeing plane at take-off, but once the motherboard has undergone POST-checks they are disabled only upon attaining a certain temperature and then snap on again at 30% of the capacity.

The heat abstraction from the processor is done using three full-copper heat pipes which release heat to the common radiator with a 80-mm fan. Air is fed from the top via an air-inlet grid positioned near the left-hand speaker.

Therefore, air is blown downwards, so it doesn't make sense blocking the bottom grid so as to provide effective cooling. Besides, due to the fins of the processor's cooling system, part of the heat is released to the aluminum plate installed on the notebook lid.

The video card and the chipset use a simpler cooling, but anyway we found no signs of overheating.

You may think that the notebook makes much noise in operation, but I dare assure you that even during resource-demanding games and benchmarks the fans were not rotating to the full and produced no discomfort. That is another advantage.

Summing up

Summing up the results of today's test, we take the pleasure to note that DTR notebook ASUS A4500D has proved to be a good-quality and reliable product. Among the pluses is the fast processor, capacious hard disk, a good LCD matrix and the possibility to play modern games albeit at the minimum settings. We also can't help mentioning the outstanding package bundle, the good quality of cooling, as well as the affordable price in the end.

But there are shortcomings. And ASUS A4500D is no exception. The most essential shortcoming is the large size and weight. Anyway, we should not forget that the notebook is positioned as a replacement for the desktop PC, so it doesn't make sense imposing such requirements like "mobility" and "compactness" upon it. For that, there is an absolutely different class of notebooks, but that is a different story…