One of the main advantages of a laptop is that besides being a dutiful work horse it can also act as your travel companion. Luckily, we have come a long way since the original portable computers which were suitcases so massive that you wouldn’t be allowed to check them in at many airlines not to mention have them as your carry on. Though when it comes to travelling with a laptop Antoine De Saint-Exupery (1900 – 1944) put it best when he said “He who would travel happily must travel light”.
The Asus N50 might only weigh just under 3Kgs but if you add the bag, power brick, mouse and headset the overall package cannot be considered light. Sure, you can still check it in as hand luggage but after carrying it around for a while it will start to “weigh”. It also isn’t the smallest of laptops which means that for me it would be pretty much useless on economy flights, busses and trains unless you are in those seats facing each other. I’m a big tall bloke, which means that at the best of times I hardly have enough leg room to start with. Trying to add a laptop the size of the N50 even when resting fully open against the chair in front of me isn’t what I would describe as comfortable.
A netbook would probably be a lot better option while travelling although the N50 behaves itself very well away from the mains in places where legroom doesn’t literally come at a premium. I was able to squeeze out just under 3 hours in light usage conditions using conservative power settings. This figure drops somewhat if you leave your wifi / Bluetooth on, but conveniently there is a little button on the front that disables them both. Where 2 to 3 hours away from the mains might not sound like something to write home about if you consider that some ultra portables are able to last over 9 hours, it’ll do the trick for 95% of the time. Plus you have to keep in mind that, that level of portability does come with an entirely different price tag.
The N50 might not be the world’s best ‘travel laptop’ but it travels well enough once you found a bag for it (see my previous post for my laptop case musings). People often say that it’s all about the journey not the destination but the N50 happily contradicts that. It might be slightly too bulky during the journey but it does shine by providing you with all the computational comforts of home once you’re at your destination.
And now I got a spare couple of hours I’ll have a play with installing Windows 7, so in my next post I’m going to look at how well Windows 7 behaves on the N50.
