ASUS B53F: Elegance at a master's level

I didn't hesitate to immediately take the machine out of its box, which arrived in a simple box. I had no idea what type it would be, but its beautiful black "etched" aluminum case blew me away. The cover still carried the cold outside, but this is not surprising. When you take the B53 in your hands for the first time, you can feel that there is substance in it.

The visual silence is broken by the glossy ASUS logo and the plastic strip on top. The inscription fits nicely into the metallic environment, but the stripe is also needed, as it is quite easy to collect all the fingerprints on the cover, so it doesn’t go wrong that where we constantly adjust the tilt angle, there won’t be a contiguous spot on the surface. Of course, this is not a negative, it is a negligible problem compared to the large number of piano lacquer covers today.

Opening the display, the one-time tester, a user accustomed to chic-fork multimedia laptops, is surprised at first by the clarity, but with constant use, he simply falls in love with its simple beauty. At the bottom we find the usual glossy ASUS logo again, and above it is the 15,6 ″ matt display with a resolution of 1366 × 768 pixels, the tilt of which is continuous, easy and stable. In the corporate sphere, we have become accustomed to getting a non-glossy panel, although we supposedly have to give up on more beautiful colors this way, even if we don't notice a difference. The standard TN + Film panel is complemented by LED backlighting. Above it we find the microphone and the 2 megapixel camera. The latter has simple but great opaque optics, so you can hide from unwanted glances during a meeting or a plain video conference without interrupting the conversation.

Moving to the other side of the notebook's interior, we unsurprisingly find the waterproof keyboard and touchpad as the main peripherals. The latter has a numpad "next to it", it is comfortable to press, the material is relatively hard, but thanks to this, it is durable. -Fortunately, the machine is not equipped with the currently fashionable "Apple design" keyboard.- It is pleasant to type on, but you have to get used to the layout crowded around the enter key. The touchpad is of outstanding quality, the touch surface itself is also demanding, the two rubberized buttons are the icing on the cake, they are quiet and soft. Every manufacturer could use it as an example, we would no longer covet another touchpad. The wrist rest has a plastic cover, so if you were to type in a cool place, there would be no problem with the temperature of the aluminum, however, during use, the metal also "warms up" to an acceptable temperature. 

There is a power button in the upper right corner and a fingerprint reader in the lower corner. Using the buttons on the left, you can do the following from top to bottom: First, you can easily change the energy settings. Choose from cinema, quiet office, battery-saving and high-performance modes. Use the next button to make presentations easier, create several different modes to adjust resolution, outputs, and sounds, turn off the screen saver, and remove desktop icons. The third button is used to disable the touchpad.

Looking from the back of the machine, you can see the battery covering almost the entire surface in addition to the metal hinges. At the front, between the 5 in 1 and the Smart Card reader, you can see the solid status LEDs flashing solidly. They mostly flicker white, except for the axi, his greenish-yellow. During use, we hardly notice so tiny, however, when our attention is directed to them they are properly informed.

Examining the left side, going from back to front, the power supply, USB 2.0 port, cooling, and then the colossal video connector offer: D-Sub, HDMI and DisplayPort. We can safely say that the production is fantastic, some multimedia machines would envy it. The microphone and headphone output came closest to our hands. On the other hand, the situation is also great, as the Kensington lock is followed by the RJ-45 LAN, RJ-11 modem and optical drive. Then an Express Card reader was placed over the USB and eSata combo port. The line is closed by a WiFi switch, which allows us to easily disconnect the wireless connection for either energy saving or other reasons. However, be aware that if you disable WLAN here, you cannot reactivate it with the Fn + F2 key combination.

We may be in for a little surprise at the bottom, as ASUS has a business card holder, but there are also Altec Lansing speakers, a dock connector and a keyboard drain.

All in all, the protection of our data, values ​​and hardware is ensured by the metal housing, vibration-protected HDD, Smart Card and fingerprint reader, Kensington key, concealable camera and one-button disabled wifi. There are 3 USB 2.0, HDMI, D-Sub, Display Port, Ethernet, modem, ExpressCard and card readers on the notebook.

Let's start testing!