Asus K50IJ

Jayesh Shinde 12 Nov 2009

75 Good

Price: Rs 37,300

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Summary

The Asus K50IJseries is a 15-inch budget laptop that offers a full keyboard with a number pad and good overall performance. But it has average build quality, lacks features and weighs quite heavy.

Pros:

Large 15-inch screen
Keyboard + numberpad
Good overall performance

Cons:

Overloaded with gloss
Poor onboard audio

Full Review

The Asus K50IJseries is a 15-inch budget laptop that offers a full keyboard with a number pad and good overall performance.

To say the Asus K50IJ is covered in gloss is an understatement. Actually, not only the screen, but the entire laptop, right from the screen lid, bezel, to palmrest and touchpad, is bathed in gloss. It is the undoubted fingerprint magnet of the budget laptop bunch.

We would recommend buying the Asus K50IJ for its large screen and keyboard. Apart from that, there isn't anything extra that the Asus K50IJ tries to offer.

Of course, with a larger form factor compared to some of the 14-inch laptops (Acer Aspire 4736, Samsung R420, Compaq CQ40-536TX), Asus has implemented a full-sized keyboard with a dedicated number pad on the right--this is an added bonus. However, the keys themselves are ordinary, and it's unfortunate they don't feel as good as some of the others in its class. Onboard sound is another area of improvement for this laptop--audio from the onboard speakers is too low and muffled, even at full volume. But its textured touchpad is one of the best in the bunch.

Like the Gateway NV48, the Asus K50IJseries comes equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2-GHz processor, and a 320GB hard drive. But it has 4GB of RAM compared to the NV48's 3GB--however, it doesn't come with a 64-bit Windows operating system to fully utilize it. Sadly, there is no Draft-N Wi-Fi or Gigabit Ethernet, either. But unlike the NV48, it comes with a combination of multicard reader and ExpressCard slot. With its 15-inch form factor, no surprise that the Asus is one of the heaviest laptop in this category of budget laptops, at 2.7-kg

Performance is slightly better on the Asus K50IJ compared to the Gateway NV48, with a WorldBench 6 score of 85. Battery life is similar to the one found on Samsung R420--about 1 hour 10 minutes on BatteryEater. Watching movies was a treat on the large-ish screen, and we had no complains with its overall performance.

We would recommend buying the Asus K50IJ for its large screen and keyboard. Apart from that, there isn't anything extra that the Asus K50IJ tries to offer.

Bottom Line

The Asus K50IJseries is a 15-inch budget laptop that offers a full keyboard with a number pad and good overall performance. But it has average build quality, lacks features and weighs quite heavy.

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