ASUS has recently launched the F555LA-AH51 15.6-inch laptop and we decided to have an in depth look at this laptop. This device offers very good performance for what it’s priced at. Let’s see what this ASUS has to offer.
ASUS F555LA-AH51 15.6-Inch Laptop Review
The Exterior
The ASUS F555LA-AH51 15.6-inch laptop comes in the typical Ultrabook size format with a very slim body and display. The top cover is finished in a circular textured black finish with the ASUS logo in chrome right dead center. The 15.6-inch matte display is surrounded on the inside by a relatively wide matte black edge. The Webcam and dual microphone are located on the top edge while another chrome ASUS logo sits on the middle of the bottom edge.
The top of the laptop is finished in silver with contrasting black keys. The keyboard area features a textured finish with the power button on the top left corner. We also find the black fullsized chicklet keyboard. The palmrest area is finished in a brushed aluminum texture with the simplistic touchpad slightly off center for better writing comfort. The status LEDs are on the bottom right corner of the palmrest.
The rest of the body is finished in the same matte black plastic you can find on most laptops. Something rare for laptops of this form factor is the addition of a DVD-Drive on the right side of the body.
The Connectivity
The ASUS F555LA-AH51 comes equipped with all the currently used standards.
The right side of the body features the DVD-Drive, 1 USB 2.0 Port, a combo headphones/mic port, and the now standard card reader.
The left side of the body features the power connector, a slim Ethernet port, VGA-out, HDMI, 2 USB 3.0 Ports and the Kensington lock port.
On the inside the ASUS F555LA-AH51 comes with Wireless WiFi B/G/N connectivity. ASUS is saying that Bluetooth 4.0 is optional on this device and according to most people it does not feature Bluetooth connectivity.
As is the case with most laptops without Bluetooth, you can fix this problem very easily with a Bluetooth Dongle. I even managed to find an ASUS model:
The Performance
The ASUS F555LA-AH51 is equipped with a 4th Generation Intel Core i5-4210U Processor running at 1.7GHz. If the occasion requires it, this processor can increase its clock speed up to a maximum of 2.7GHz with Turbo Boost. The 4th Generation of Intel Core family processors have brought multiple improvements over the 3rd Generation. The 2 most noticeable for the user are lower energy consumption and the improved Intel Graphics HD 4400 graphics card. On average this new graphics card performs 30% better the previous generation’s Intel HD 4000 graphics card at the same clock speed.
To aid this processor this laptop comes equipped with 8GB of DDR3 RAM making this a very capable laptop. If you run memory intensive applications or do a lot of multitasking this is right up your alley. If I were to spot right here, this would still be a very good laptop, but you also get a 1TB HDD. This HDD will fulfill all your storage needs in the foreseeable future.
As a bonus to the already very good package ASUS has somehow managed to fit a DVD-Drive in the Ultrabook body. This is a very rare thing on laptops with this form factor.
ASUS doesn’t offer any specifications for the battery life of this device but based on our previous experience with Intel Core i5 processors I would say the ASUS F555LA-AH51 is capable of running for 5 hours or more, making this an overall very capable and versatile device.