Recent Asus notebooks have left us impressed; they look much better than previous generations and offer good value for money. The F3F keeps up the good work in a number of ways.

Under the lid is an Intel T2050 (1.6GHz) Centrino Duo processor and 1GB of Ram. There may be faster processors in this roundup, but that extra memory helped the F3F to achieve a Sysmark score of 194 and a PC Mark of 2881. These scores may sound puny when compared with Core 2 Duo processors, but compared with most others in this group test, the Asus proves its worth.

Its main selling point, however, is incredible battery life. Asus has equipped the F3F with a 7,200mAh battery pack – bigger than anything else in the group. It enabled the F3F to run for more than six-and-a-half hours while performing general computing tasks – more than twice the time managed by its closest rival – the MV – and 408 minutes when playing DVDs.

The 80GB hard disk is standard fare for a notebook at this price, and the F3F also carries a Vista Capable sticker, which means there should be no upgrade problems when the new operating system arrives.

Other notable features include a multiformat DVD writer, a 15.4in bright widescreen display, a 1.3 megapixel webcam built into the lid, a good-size track pad with a scroll slider and integrated Bluetooth V2.0+EDR, which can reach transfer rates of 3Mbits/sec.

The graphics aren’t really up to much, though, thanks to the choice of Intel’s integrated 945 chipset, but overall the F3F is well designed, looks good and, at 3.05kg, it’s relatively portable too.

See full performance reulsts for Asus F3F laptop
Compare to all laptop performance results

This article is part of a group test of laptop computers costing under £700.
See also:
Evesham Quest A430
Hi-Grade A9700
MSI Megabook M662
MV Mobeus 13"
Toshiba Satellite A110-275.

Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf downloads above.